Deception and Desire

by Janet Tanner

  Maggie’s heart came into her mouth with a huge leap, cutting off her breath, defying her, for the moment, to speak.

  ‘Maggie.’ Steve’s voice was low, as ever, yet she sensed a tension beneath the laid-back exterior, a wary alertness like that of a tiger. Or was that imagination? Had what she now knew simply made her look at him in a different light?

  ‘Yes?’ At least she had managed to speak, but it came out sounding breathless. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Can I come in?’ Even as he said it he was pushing past her. Taken by surprise she was unable to prevent him. ‘I think you took some things away from the Vandina office. I’d like them back please.’

  ‘Well I’m sorry, I’m afraid you can’t have them. They belong to Ros.’

  ‘They belong to the company. If you’ll just let me …’ He was in the kitchen now; he saw the file on the table and reached for it. ‘This is what I want, I think.’

  Maggie moved swiftly, snatching up the file and holding it pressed against her chest. ‘Please leave, Steve.’

  He froze, all that lazy power bottled up and waiting … for what? His eyes, ice-blue and hypnotic, seemed to bore into her.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that. Not without the file. Give it to me now.’

  ‘It’s too late, Steve. It won’t do any good for you to take it now. You see, I’ve read it. I know what’s in it – and why you want it.’

  His ice-cold eyes narrowed.

  ‘Really? And have you told anyone else what you have discovered?’

  ‘Hardly! I’ve only just found out myself …’

  The moment the words were out she knew she should never have spoken them. His lips quirked into a slight satisfied smile but his eyes were still cold as chips of blue glass.

  ‘In that case, Maggie, you leave me no option.’

  Her trembling fear became sharp, cold terror.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  But she knew, without asking. Unbelievable that this man with his clean-cut, all-American-boy good looks, throwaway elegance and easy charm should be dangerous, but dangerous he undoubtedly was – appearances had misled. This was a man who was totally ruthless in the pursuit of his aims. He had exploited, manipulated, lied and deceived those who stood in the way of his ambition. For all she knew he had already killed. And she knew, with a certainty that went beyond frightened imaginings, that he would do so again.

  She was the one now who was threatening his position; rashly, stupidly, she had let him know it. And she was totally alone here, totally at his mercy. Perhaps when he returned from work Mike would find her message on the answering machine and come straight over, but it would be too late. The danger was real and it was immediate.

  Almost mesmerised she saw him draw a silk scarf out of the pocket of his jacket and twist it experimentally around his fingers.

  ‘I’m really very sorry about this, Maggie,’ he said, and there was only the slightest catch of nervous excitement in his otherwise perfectly level voice. ‘ But at least we don’t know one another very well, do we?’

  ‘You’re mad!’

  ‘Not really. But I am very, very determined. Now, are we going to do this the easy way – or the hard way? The choice is yours.’

  ‘You are mad!’ Maggie’s mind was running in wild circles now. Surely he did not think she was simply going to allow him to kill her without a fight? But what sort of fight? There were knives in the kitchen drawer, almost within reach, but what good would they do? She couldn’t fight him, even armed with a knife; he could overpower her easily and might even turn it on her.

  There was only one way to defend herself, and that was with words. Somehow she had to stay calm and delay the moment when he would twist that silk scarf around her throat and pull it tight. But what words? What could she say? With an instinct born of terror Maggie found inspiration. Steve had not liked being called mad. Perhaps his vanity was his Achilles’ heel.

  ‘You really have been very clever,’ she said. ‘How did you manage it?’

  He smirked and with a tiny thrill of relief she realised she had been right.

  ‘You could say it was easy. But not everyone would have taken their chances the way I did.’

  ‘So – tell me about it.’

  ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I really want to know.’

  He smirked again, finding himself eager, suddenly, to tell her. Jayne had asked, and he had refused, but then if he had killed Jayne time would have been of the essence. Then he had been anxious to get to Dinah and his alibi. Now that was of no importance. Jayne would provide him with his alibi, however long it took.

  Jayne. The smirk became a full-blown smile. He was glad now that he had not killed her. Jayne was like him – they would make a good team. For the time being. As long as it suited him. When it suited him no longer then he would dispose of her.

  A little boastfully Steve began to recount his story. As he talked Maggie’s mind was running in circles as she tried to think of a way to escape. Simply to make a break and run would, she knew, be as useless as trying to defend herself with one of the kitchen knives. He was between her and the door and even if she could get past him there was no way she could escape. The other cottage in the lane would be deserted at this time of day and with his long legs and athletic frame he would catch her easily before she could reach the main road. She sat quite still, letting him talk, assessing, wondering, how to last this out, how to gain a reprieve.

  It came to her quite suddenly, a thought so repellent it made her shiver with distaste yet at the same time offered a glimmer of hope. She had managed to flatter him into telling her how he had come to impersonate Dinah’s son; perhaps she could flatter him into something more. He was a highly sexed man, she was sure, and he had made a pass at her once. Could she – dare she – try to interest him sexually again?

  ‘I do admire you,’ she said softly. To her own ears the words sounded insincere but Steve appeared to notice nothing. He merely continued with his tale, embellishing it with yet more details. She put down the file, which she had been hugging, on the corner of the table. Then with a supreme effort of will she forced herself to move towards him with some semblance of seduction, though her legs would hardly support her and she felt sick with apprehension.

  A faintly surprised expression crossed the handsome features, then slowly he began to smile and she knew she had been right. Vanity was his weakness. Her only hope now was to play on it.

  ‘There’s something awfully attractive about someone as clever – and ruthless – as you,’ she said. She stretched out a hand tentatively and laid it on his shoulder. For a moment muscle tensed beneath smooth silk then relaxed again.

  ‘You think so? I’m glad. You are a very attractive woman yourself, Maggie.’

  ‘Am I?’ She let her fingers run on along the line of his shoulder to his neck, spreading her fingers out into a light caress beneath the hair that grew down thickly on to his collar. Then, summoning all her courage, she kissed him.

  For a moment he was like alabaster, his lips unresponsive, then she felt a tremor run through his body and with a suddenness that almost shocked her he took control. He was the aggressor now, it was he who was kissing her, towering above her, crushing her, whilst his hand slid inside her blouse. His touch made her almost physically sick but somehow she forced down the nausea, responding with what she hoped was the enthusiasm he would expect. Through his silk shirt she could feel that his back was drenched with sweat – or was it her own hands that were wet and trembling?

  ‘Maggie,’ he whispered softly, like a lover. ‘Oh Maggie, Maggie …’

  And then the doorbell rang.

  She felt him stiffen and knew instinctively what he was going to do. As his hand came up to cover her mouth she twisted away, kicking out at the same time as hard as she could. She felt him double up as her knee connected with his groin, pushed at him with all her remaining strength and ran, on legs that threatened to le
t her down, to the door. Her hands rumbled with the catch for seemingly endless moments, then the door flew open.

  There were two people on the doorstep – a man and a woman. Maggie did not stop even to register that the woman was the Western Daily Press reporter or that the man had a camera bag slung over his shoulder. She did not speak, she scarcely even glanced at them. Her only thought was to get away … away …

  They separated, startled, as she pushed past them and turned to look after her in amazement as she fled down the path. But she did not stop. Maggie turned into the lane and went on running.

  Mike arrived home a little after four. He was surprised but not particularly worried to see that Maggie’s car was not parked outside. She must have delayed coming over to the flat, he supposed – either that or she had been and gone out again.

  He let himself in, dumped his bag and nudged the ‘play’ button on the answering machine which was flashing at him from the table in the tiny hallway.

  First Maggie, asking him to call her at the cottage – strange, he thought; then Bryan Price, with whom he played squash sometimes, asking why he had not heard from Mike lately and suggesting a game. Mike unzipped his jacket as he listened to the messages, then clicked the machine on to ‘home’ and dialled the number of Ros’s cottage. There was no reply, only the persistent ringing of the bell. Maggie must have already left, he decided, and would probably arrive at any moment. He went into the kitchen, put the kettle on and made a cup of tea, but as he drank it he found himself watching the clock and wondering where Maggie could be.

  Mike was not an imaginative man but for some reason his intuition was working overtime now, making him uneasy. He simply could not understand what had happened to Maggie, and suddenly he was thinking of Ros, who had disappeared without trace. My God, he thought, suppose the same thing happened to Maggie? The very idea shook him to the core, colouring his usual stolidity deep black, and he realised the prospect of never seeing Maggie again was a quite unbearable one. He had been concerned about Ros – more than concerned – but the thought of Maggie disappearing from his life in the same way hit at the deepest core of him with the sickening thud of a boxer’s punch, way below the belt, and brought beads of cold sweat to his forehead.

  Christ, he loved her! Love was not a word much used in Mike’s vocabulary; he seldom thought about it, but he thought about it now, in the same breath as Maggie, and knew without doubt that it was indeed love he felt for her.

  He ran his fingers through his hair, thinking deeply. Strange really. He had, he supposed, loved Ros, in his own way, without putting a word to it. Yet now he knew that it had been but a pale shadow of the emotion he experienced with and for Maggie.

  The telephone shrilled suddenly, jerking him out of his reverie, and he lunged for it.

  ‘Maggie?’ he almost said, but somehow stopped himself, and moments later he was glad he had. The voice at the other end was brisk, official.

  ‘Mr Thompson?’

  A sudden premonition of disaster tightened his throat.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is the police station, PC Dugdale speaking. I wonder if I could ask you to come down.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘We’ll explain more fully when you arrive, sir, but the crux of the matter is that we have Mrs Veritos here – Maggie Veritos. She is very upset and she asked us to contact you.’

  ‘Has there been an accident?’

  ‘Not exactly, sir. But I think it might be a good idea if you could get here as soon as possible.’

  Mike’s jaw was set. He’d been right to be worried, then.

  ‘I’ll be straight over,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Maggie said. ‘I can’t bring myself to believe any of it. It’s like a nightmare, this whole thing.’

  She was sitting in Mike’s biggest and most comfortable chair, wrapped, like an invalid, in a blanket because although the evening was warm and muggy she could not stop shivering. She was sipping whisky, the tumbler cradled between her two hands because she could not trust herself to hold it with just one, but not even the 40 per cent proof spirit could reach the icy places inside her. She was, Mike thought, suffering the classic symptoms of shock – and he didn’t feel so great himself.

  He had known, even before the policeman had begun to explain, that something was dreadfully wrong, yet he had still been shaken to the core when he had learned exactly what had happened.

  ‘That bastard!’ he said now. ‘I just wish I could get my hands on him! I’d make him wish he’d never been born!’

  ‘I wonder where he is?’ Maggie said. She was staring into space, still reliving every traumatic moment from the time she had discovered the truth about Steve until she had dashed past the startled reporter and photographer, running and running with no clear idea except to put as much distance as possible between her and the man who had threatened her and, perhaps, murdered her sister as he had clearly intended to murder her.

  ‘They’ll catch up with him,’ Mike said roughly. ‘And when they do I hope they’ll throw the book at him. Why the hell did they ever do away with the death penalty? But hanging would be too good for him. I know what I’d like to do with him, the bastard!’

  ‘He’s mad,’ Maggie said in a small voice. ‘Quite, quite mad. You should have seen his eyes, Mike.’ She shivered convulsively, seeing again the expression on that handsome face, cold ruthlessness mixed with triumph and pride at what he thought of as his own cleverness.

  ‘Of course he’s mad but that’s no reason for him to get away with it.’ Mike was pacing, furious in his impotence. ‘ When I think of what he was going to do to you …’

  ‘And what he might already have done to Ros …’ She was silent for a moment as new waves of horror overwhelmed her. ‘I know we suspected that something terrible had happened to her. But I never thought … and I still kept hoping I was wrong. Now … I can’t help thinking he must be behind her disappearance. She found out somehow that he was an imposter and faced him with it. And he … killed her to keep her quiet. Oh, why didn’t we guess? Why didn’t we see through him?’

  ‘If Dinah couldn’t see through him how could we be expected to?’ Mike asked.

  ‘Poor Dinah. I wonder how she’s going to take it?’

  ‘Very badly, I should think. But we can’t worry about her now.’

  ‘I should have guessed! I knew Ros had said something funny was going on at Vandina. But I was so hung up on this industrial spy thing I never looked beyond it. I suspected everyone but Steve of being involved in Ros’s disappearance – even poor Brendan. He might still be alive today if I hadn’t more or less accused him of having done something terrible to Ros. Now he’s dead and Ros is dead and …’

  ‘You can’t blame yourself for Brendan’s death.’

  ‘But I do. I do!’

  ‘Then you mustn’t. He was a bastard too.’

  ‘But he didn’t deserve to die! He needed help – someone to love him. Everyone should have someone to love them, Mike. No one should be so desperate they have to jump off a bloody bridge …’ The tears were falling now, rolling in hot rivers down her cheeks, trickling down her nose, as if somewhere deep inside her a dam had been breached.

  ‘Oh hell, Maggie!’ Mike crossed to her, kneeling down beside her, pulling her head into his chest. ‘Maggie, darling Maggie, don’t cry.’

  The tender concern in his voice only released another wave of tears. She sobbed almost soundlessly, her breath making small tearing sounds, her body convulsed. He held her while the storm raged, not knowing how to comfort her, aware there was nothing he could say to make the nightmare go away, nothing he could do but offer her a rock to cling to.

  After a while he held her away, mopping her face with his handkerchief.

  ‘Let me get you another drink.’

  She clung to him. ‘No … don’t leave me, Mike. Just hold me!’

  A fresh wave of helpless anger consumed him.

  ‘It
’s all right – it’s all right. I won’t leave you. Ssh, now, ssh, calm down …’

  After a while the convulsive shudders and sobs began to come less often until there was only the occasional tremor, like the aftershocks of an earthquake.

  ‘Better?’

  ‘Mm. A bit. He won’t get away, will he, Mike? He mustn’t get away!’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll catch up with him. Now, sweetheart, I think you should try to get some rest.’

  ‘Oh!’ Her eyes flew open. ‘My things – I haven’t brought any of them! They’re still at the cottage!’

  ‘You don’t need them, do you? You can borrow one of my T-shirts to sleep in if you want to.’ His tone, the way he was looking at her, suggested he would rather she wore nothing; he was aching for the feel of her body close to his.

  ‘But it’s everything, Mike – underwear, toothbrush, make-up remover – I must look a fright!’ Her fingers went to her face, wiping at the mascara smudges beneath her eyes. ‘I might have to go to the police station tomorrow – anything! I must at least be presentable.’

  ‘You want me to drive over and fetch your things then?’

  ‘Oh yes, please – would you?’

  ‘Are they all together?’

  ‘My case is packed and ready. But I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Don’t you think it would be better if you stayed here?’ he suggested, thinking that to revisit the scene of her ordeal would upset her again. But to Maggie, at this moment, there was no prospect worse than being left alone.

  ‘No, please take me with you, Mike. As long as you’re with me I don’t mind, really. I couldn’t bear to be on my own just now.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure …’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Now that the tears had cleansed her she felt calmer, temporarily at least, though she knew the deep dark well was still there inside her, waiting to open once more and swallow her. She went to the bathroom, washed her face and combed her hair. She held tightly to his arm as they went downstairs as if to let go of it would be to let go of a lifeline, and sat as close to him in the car as the seat belt would allow. He glanced at her, saw the resolve in the tight lines of her face, and loved her all the more.