“No, Ash, it’s much more realistic than that. Anyway, I’ve got a publisher for it and they want to publish some of Ganda’s other notebooks. Like Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, only with gadgets.”
Blimey. Bree was almost fluent now.
“What about Ash?”
“Ah, well, my theory all falls down there a bit. Still got the twelve pairs of waders, Ash?”
“Yep. But I’m taking them to the tip tomorrow, if anyone wants to come for a ceremonial seeing-off.”
I caught Cal’s eye and we grinned at each other. I hadn’t come so badly out of the inheritance thing. Maybe the half a million pounds hadn’t materialised, but I’d got Cal, I’d got a whole new life beckoning to me from fifteen acres of moorland and a small, white house. Oh, and a nose, in a matchbox.
I couldn’t settle at work on Friday. In fact, we were all edgy, twitchily enervated by the muggy heat, snappy with each other and miserable with overwork.
“The twins wouldn’t go to bed last night, till midnight,” Katie said. “They said it was ‘too hot’. Were you hot last night, Clive?”
“I’m hot every night, darlin’.”
I looked at her. “Why do you even bother?”
“I keep hoping he’ll break his programming.”
I fiddled with a notepad, tearing little strips off the corners, shredding them and starting again. I couldn’t concentrate on work, even though I knew I should. I had to get this article in shape before the paper went to press on Tuesday, and there were still the pictures to sort out.
“Why don’t you go home, Will?”
“What, and sit around thinking? Can’t. I need to be occupied.”
“Go round to your man’s then. I’m sure he’ll occupy you.”
Clive went “hur hur” in the background. Katie reached out a foot, depressed the handle under his chair and watched smugly as the seat shot downwards, causing him to bang his chin on his desk.
“Cal’s busy, sorting things out for tomorrow. I don’t want to get in the way.”
“Well, go and help your sister with the baby then. I’m sure she’d be glad of someone to take Grace out for a push so she can catch up with her beauty sleep.”
“She’s busy, too. She’s moving in with Jazz.”
“In with Jazz? Is she mad? His place is only a short hop from being an anthrax zone.” Katie sighed. “I still think you should be somewhere else, Will. I’ll finish the article for you.”
“Do you know what to say?”
“Of course I do. Now, just go.”
“If Luke rings…”
“I’ll tell him you’ve gone home early to pack. All right?”
So I went home. The house felt strangely underoccupied without OC and Grace. Ash had gone off to the tip on Monday and not been seen since, and even Clay had gone out somewhere, so there was complete quiet as I let myself in.
Thunder rumbled. The humidity made my head ache and I rested my forehead against the cool wall of the hallway, slumping against it with my eyes closed. I stayed like this for a few minutes. I felt flat and dopey with the combination of muggy air and the logistics for tomorrow, so the quiet was welcome. Outside I heard the birds stop thrashing about in the hedge, an unnatural peace descending as everything hurried for shelter from the oncoming storm.
Thunder rolled again and I straightened away from the wall. As I turned to go through the kitchen to the back door, I heard a rattle behind me and swivelled in time to see an envelope flutter to the floor, landing with a tiny pfff alongside the mat and sliding a few inches on the wood boards.
I recognised the envelope without needing to pick it up. Another of those anonymous letters, probably still saying “you don’t deserve it”, although in a sudden rush of creativity the unknown sender had managed “I feel sorry for you” (very big of them) and a couple of “I hope you learn your lesson”. Not exactly Shakespearian, but disturbing nonetheless.
This one, flopping to the floor like a dying goldfish, as my head pounded and the thunder bundled about, was the last straw. Angry, slightly scared and incredibly frustrated, I swept to the door and flung it open, leaping outside and intercepting the sender just before the garden gate.
“Ow! You’re hurting me.”
“Serves you right, Nadine. What the hell are you playing at?”
Sulkily Nadine rubbed her arm where I’d grabbed hold of her. “I’m not.”
Sorry, do I sound unsurprised? I’d kind of, sort of, almost figured it out when I’d seen her desk, an imagination-free zone filled with cutesy toys and knick-knacks, all hailing from the fuchsia end of the spectrum. Who else would write such curiously childish notes? And then, as though my disbelieving stare finally shook something loose in her head, she burst out, “He’s lying to you, he doesn’t love you and he’s not really going to marry you and he only went out with you so that you’d give him money. He loves me and we’re going to have a baby and get married and—”
“Well, duh, dear.”
Nadine stopped, mid-tirade. “What? You knew?” Her legs seemed to give way and her weight slumped against me. “But if you knew, then why are you going away with him this weekend?” Her head began shaking from side to side. “He won’t sleep with you, you know. He’s told me about you trying to seduce him, wearing stupid underwear and prancing about half-naked to try and turn him on, but he won’t do it because he loves me.”
I rolled my eyes and waited.
“And as soon as he’s taken you for every penny, we’re going to go to Canada and get married and have our baby and he’s going to buy a design company so that I can work with him and he’ll do the designs and I’ll be his model and…”
Now I was the one shaking my head. “Nadine. Listen to me. Luke Fry is a liar and a fraud. I know you won’t believe me because you love him, but come with me and I’ll introduce you to someone who can prove it. If we can’t convince you, then I promise I’ll forget all about the letters and you can go back to him and start your new life in Canada, okay?”
“You’re hurting me again.”
“It’s not far.”
Dragging Nadine, who moaned and protested all the way, I headed for Cal’s flat. When we arrived, I dumped her on his sofa and asked him to show her all the evidence we’d acquired against Luke Fry, and whilst I told her the story of how he’d used her, Cal dropped printed sheets in her lap. Everything we’d taken off his computer, all the letters he’d written to her, the emails, the files he’d held on me and the other women, the archived internet chats, everything.
At first Nadine wouldn’t even look at the papers. She kept looking from me to Cal as though hoping that this was just a simple abduction. It was when I began to describe how Luke had pretended to buy the flat, and how we’d had sex there, that she flinched.
“I bet he told you that he refused to sleep with me, did he? What, that I begged, but he managed to keep me at bay with promises? And you were scared that he might give in, that maybe this weekend would be the one? Nadine, this weekend, after I’d given him the money, of course, he was going to skip out on both of us.”
“No. We’re going to Canada!” It was the first real reaction she’d shown.
“Look.” I showed her the conversation with Argento in Bristol. “Here. Where he says he’ll be coming to the South West on ‘business’. That’s next week. What’s the betting that this ‘phone call’ he’s talking about making to her was where he set up a meeting? He’s going to meet her, Nadine—next week—with the money from me in his pocket.”
“I…don’t…” Protectively Nadine clutched at her bump. Then with a small sigh she fainted and slid to the floor in a strangely serene tangle of limbs.
Cal looked at me. “What do we do?”
“Leave her there for now. She’ll be all right. But we have to get her on our side, Cal. If she goes to Luke and tells him that I know all about him, he’ll drop from the radar so fast that even your boys won’t be able to track him.”
“And we’re
certain that she’s not part of it? That he really isn’t going to whisk her off to Canada for a good old colonial lifestyle in the Rockies?”
“What do you think? He’ll have gone through any money Nadine had, and you’ve seen what he said to this Argento woman. Did that sound like a man who was planning to emigrate any time soon?”
“She’s pregnant.”
“Probably poor and pregnant by now. He’s a wanker. Old news.”
“I just meant, he is such a bastard.”
I flashed him a quick smile. “Can I leave her with you for a bit? I’ve got to go and make some phone calls about tomorrow, and she might take the story better from you than me. She thinks I’ve got an axe to grind.”
“I’ll do my best. But what if she won’t co-operate?”
“Then you’ll have to use your charm, won’t you?”
“Which one? The shrunken human head or the silver horseshoe?”
“Very funny.”
“Willow.” Cal reached across the prostrate body on the floor and took my hand. “You realise that if Luke even so much as suspects that you know about him, he might not just disappear. He could be dangerous.”
The thought had occurred to me. “That’s why I have to make sure that he is one hundred percent convinced of my undying devotion to him. Plus, of course, I have the world’s most powerful aphrodisiac at my disposal.”
“Mmm? It’s working for me, by the way.”
“Oh this one wouldn’t work on you, you’ve got enough of your own. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Be careful.” His eyes were guarded now. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Not, I would bet, quite as much as I don’t want anything to happen to me. See you tomorrow.” And I skipped off down the stairs, with the sting of adrenaline sharp in my mouth.
Chapter Thirty
By Saturday morning the storm had swept clear of York, leaving trails of gravel strewn with petals and branches about the streets as though a thousand careless landscape gardeners had passed by. I was up as soon as it was light, pacing about my bedroom, muttering to myself—there was still so much that could go wrong, so much that I couldn’t leave to trust, to faith, to Cal.
But I had to, didn’t I?
It had to work. It just had to.
At least I knew that Luke would be there. Whoever, whatever else might go wrong, Luke would be there. Yesterday’s phone call had made sure of that. Although he’d been a bit cool to start off with.
“How did the gig go? I would have come and said hello as soon as I realised it was you, but you were…chatting to that man.” A clever insertion of a pause, long enough to make me wonder whether he’d seen anything incriminating, until I realised we hadn’t been doing anything incriminating.
“It was good, thanks. I thought I’d ring to let you know that the bank is releasing the money, so that I can write you out a cheque tomorrow, if you like. At the hotel? Are you still on for that?”
The word “money” acted on Luke like Viagra cream applied direct to his libido. Suddenly he was the besotted, devoted boyfriend, couldn’t do enough for me. Did I want picking up? Could he bring anything? Oh, and by the way, the dress I’d worn on Sunday to perform in—stunning, made me look like Jessica Alba.
I didn’t even know who Jessica Alba was.
I set out for the hotel at ten. I’d booked the suite from lunchtime, but I wanted to get to the place early to spy out the land, wander round a bit, settle in. I wanted to be in control, confident and relaxed, when Luke arrived. I had to play perfect girlfriend a while longer. Accordingly, under my plain slip dress I was wearing the tightest black lace basque that I’d been able to find. The “God’s gift to Men” picture was completed by sheer stockings, a pair of lace knickers which obviously weren’t meant ever to be walked in and the highest heels this side of a transvestite’s cocktail party. My hair was piled up on my head and secured with a few indolent pins which let random swathes tumble onto my shoulders, and when I walked into the hotel reception they clearly thought I was a hooker.
Having reassured them with my credit card, I found my way to the honeymoon suite and began laying out the first stage of my plan, although I had to take my shoes off to do it. The carpet pile was so thick that my heels kept snagging. The alluring knickers, which had looked so sexy on the rail, kept riding up between my buttocks, and the boning in the basque meant that I couldn’t bend down without being suffocated by my own breasts. Obviously I hadn’t missed my vocation as a top-class prostitute. Although, looking around the room at the velvet blindfold beside the bed, the serious handcuffs and silk restraints, the scented massage oils, maybe I had.
I’d finished and it was still only twelve thirty. Luke wasn’t due until two. Somewhere, elsewhere in the hotel, Cal was hopefully putting the rest of the plan into action. I was slightly disturbed that I hadn’t heard from him, nor seen any sign of his presence. The Metro definitely wasn’t parked at the front. Maybe they’d worried about their profile and made him park around the back. Maybe he’d got a lift. Maybe the whole thing had fallen through and I was here alone. I shuddered. Don’t even think it. Trust him.
I ought to have been hungry. Maybe I should eat something. If nothing else it would pass the time.
No. No room. My stomach was caught in the pincer movement of anticipation and fear, boiling and rolling with something that fell between both emotions and might even have been guilt. Was it fair to do what I was going to do? Was it right? Was it my place to deal out justice? Maybe those other women hadn’t cared that he’d taken their money, maybe they’d shrugged their shoulders and got on with their lives?
Maybe this was wrong.
But then I thought of Nadine. He’d conceived a child with her, a woman he was planning to abandon. Brought another innocent person into his filthy schemes without caring that Nadine was going to find herself a single mother, without a penny.
A tap at the door and my heart nearly fell out through my mouth. “It’s okay. It’s only me.” Cal put his head inside the room. “Just wanted you to know that I’m here. Everything is fine.”
I ran over and grabbed him, hiding my face against his chest, feeling his warmth and the press of his bones against me. “God, Cal, I am so scared.”
“Hey.” And then he caught sight of the arrangement on the bed. “Hey. Whoo, where’d you get this from?” He held up the silk restraint. “Don’t tell me, Ash.”
I gave a shaky giggle. “How did you guess?”
“Well, I hope you washed it, is all. I’d better go, just in case. See you later.”
“Yes,” I whispered as he closed the door. Strangely, the fact that I knew Cal was here made me relax and I lay down on the bed, adjusting my underwear so that I could lie comfortably.
Bleeurgh. I woke up, blearily aware that one leg had gone dead because my suspenders were pressing against a nerve, and checked my watch. It was ten to two! I leaped up, rearranging myself, tweaking stockings straight and repinning bits of hair, fighting my cleavage back into the containment vessel of the basque. I felt smeared, distant, as though I hadn’t properly woken up yet. My reflection reassured me that I didn’t look quite as dislocated as I felt, although my makeup had fallen into my skin and my lipstick was nonexistent. I was reapplying the lipstick when the door to the suite opened, framing Luke.
“Hello,” he said, his voice dropping down the register as he noted my appearance. “You look absolutely bloody amazing, Willow.”
“Thank you,” I sparkled at him, smoothing my skirt over my thighs so the bulges of the suspender belt stood out and the low neck of the dress pulled even lower over my chest. “There’s a bottle of champagne in the fridge. Would you like to open it?”
“Not as much as I’d like to open you.”
Nadine, think of Nadine. “Plenty of time for that in a minute. Let’s have a drink first.”
Luke’s eyes were almost red-hot with friction, running up and down over my body, taking in my wasp waist an
d the way the high heels made my legs look forever and slender, veering back towards my breasts every time they got bored. “Yeah. Good idea.”
Carefully I poured the champagne, watching in the mirror as Luke took in my back view and then glanced around the room. There was a noticeable flicker as he saw my bag with the cheque book right on top. “I thought”—I turned around slowly to give him plenty of time to change his field of vision—“that we might test out the bed before we do anything else.” Now he looked at the bed and his eyes flickered again, seeing the props I’d laid out. It wasn’t like me to instigate sex quite so blatantly. Had I panicked him? “Of course, if you don’t want to…”
“Oh, it’s not that, I’m just a bit… You always seem so proper about sex. I didn’t think you were really into all the tying up and that, and now, here you are.” He waved a hand at the blindfold I’d left on the bedside table.
“I thought you’d like it.” Demurely I turned away, letting one shoulder drop so that my dress fell away to reveal the tight-fitting black underwear, making my skin look extra pale where my breasts spilled out over the top. “If it’s too much, that’s fine.”
“Shit, Willow, I didn’t mean that.” Luke drained his glass and stood up. “It’s a real turn-on knowing that you got off on it all the time. All that time you laid there, you were really getting kicks from it.”
“Oh yes.” I backed towards the bed. “Absolutely.” Another shrug and my dress fell clear of my body, leaving me standing in black lace underwear and high heels, fingering the silk cords which tied the velvet blindfold. Honest to God, Graham Norton would have got a hard-on. “Now, come here.”
Now, for reasons of good taste, decency and suchlike, I’m not going into what happened in the next half-hour. But for those of you shuddering and thinking of Cal, sex never took place, all right?
However. Time passed, and now Luke was beginning to fret for some sort of conclusion. He lay, naked and coated in aromatic oil, spread-eagled across the huge bed with his arms handcuffed to the bedhead and legs loosely tied to the foot, a purple blindfold across his eyes and a most impressive erection on his lower quarters. As I continued to massage the oil into his torso, he bucked and thrust beneath my hands trying to bring his groin into contact, moaning slightly and biting his lower lip. “Aw, Will, if you don’t sit on me soon, I swear I’m going to coat the ceiling.”
Reversing Over Liberace Page 24