Shit, shit, shit.
At least he was prepared for a black-out. He prided himself on his organisational abilities and he always had supplies to enable him to cope with a crisis. Experiences like this, he told himself, proved the wisdom of such foresight. He crept back into the kitchen and found a packet of candles and a box of matches in a drawer. The flame was weak and the room was full of shadows, but anything was better than pitch darkness.
He tried the transistor radio. The Meteorological Office was issuing another warning of severe gales. Tell me something I don’t know. He retuned to Radio 3 for a bit of background Beethoven whilst he pulled the paperwork for tomorrow’s meeting out of his briefcase. Perhaps if the power didn’t come back on, he would only work for an hour or so. He’d already done the hard graft. It wouldn’t do any harm to turn in early and make sure he was fresh and ready for the meeting. If all went well, he could hope for another promotion marking at his next performance appraisal. His sights were set high. A move to another office wasn’t impossible if no vacancy cropped up in Liverpool. He wasn’t prepared to waste his life away, waiting to step into dead men’s shoes.
A knock at the front door. For an instant he confused the noise with the rage of the storm. After all, no-one in their right mind would be out on a night like this. But it came again, the sound of the heavy brass knocker hammering against oak.
It must be one of the Blackwells. Either the mother who lived at the cottage up the slope, the only person he could possibly describe as a neighbour, or her drink-sodden son if he happened to be around. Perhaps they weren’t equipped to deal with a power cut. He toyed for a moment with the idea of driving a ruthless bargain for a candle and a couple of vestas. The mother looked as if she had a decent body, considering her age. She hadn’t let herself go, he liked that in a woman. The thought made him smile as, carrying the candle in its holder, he unlocked the door.
It was freezing outside and so dark that it took him a moment to focus. Then he saw the light glinting on the blade of the axe in his visitor’s hand.
The cottage belonged to Linda Blackwell, personal assistant to Juliet in her public relations business. Harry couldn’t face the prospect of sleeping in Casper’s bed and his own flat was out of bounds because one of his neighbours was a client of Juliet’s and they couldn’t run the risk that she’d be recognised. In the past, their trysts had taken place in anonymous hotels in places like Runcorn and Frodsham, where they could be confident they wouldn’t bump into anyone they knew. Tonight was supposed to be different. Special. She had given him directions, detailed and specific, warning him that the place would be difficult to find in the dark.
‘It’s called the Customs House, but it’s only tiny and you could easily miss it. She bought it after her husband died. Once you’ve branched off the main road, ignore the signs to the country park. Carry on for half a mile past the nursery and the tumbledown cottage until you come to the end of the lane. Tucked away underneath the trees are a couple of lock-up garages. The one on the left is Linda’s. She’s let me have the key, so I’ll park my Alfa inside there. You leave your car in front of the door. For God’s sake don’t block her neighbour’s access. She can’t bear him. I don’t know why, but I can guess.’ A laugh. ‘He’s a lawyer and you know how difficult they can be.’
Harry wished now that he’d asked the neighbour’s name. The last thing he wanted was to bump into someone he knew. What could he say? ‘Can’t stop, I’m just off for a tryst with the wife of a gangster’? In theory, it might do wonders for his image - as long as Casper May never got to hear of it. He checked again to make sure that even the most pedantic conveyancer could not complain that his right of way had been obstructed and set off down the path which led into the spinney which bordered the lane.
‘For God’s sake, don’t forget to bring a torch,’ she’d instructed him. ‘There are no lights and the path twists and turns on its way through the wood.’
Good advice, he reflected, as he shone the pencil beam through the darkness. Without the help of a light, he would soon be hopelessly lost amongst the trees. Juliet obviously knew her way here of old. Had she explained this route before, to a previous lover he’d heard nothing about? If so, was it any of his business?
The path was muddy underfoot and he found himself wondering why anyone would want to live here, in the back of beyond. The city he had left behind twenty minutes earlier seemed already to belong to a different world. He could imagine that in the height of summer this wooded walk might be idyllic, but only a fool would trade the warmth of home on the wildest night of winter for the rain drenching his hair and the wind stinging his cheeks.
The gale dropped for a moment and he heard a rustling amongst the trees. He shone his torch and could dimly perceive dark shapes above his head. What sound did bats make? He was a townie; natural history had never been a strongpoint. To think he might have been in his flat this evening, watching a vampire film on the box, rather than experiencing the Grand Guignol of a date with a murderer’s wife. If ever there was a night for the un-dead to rise, this was it.
He tripped over a tree stump but somehow managed to keep his grip upon the holdall which contained the champagne and a few overnight things. The torch slipped from his other hand and rolled away. He scrabbled around in the darkness and when he picked it up, found that the bulb was smashed. In a fit of temper, he hurled the thing away into the undergrowth before squatting on his haunches and cradling the bag with the bottle whilst he told himself to calm down. Pity it wasn’t full of whisky; he’d have brought a hip flask if he’d realised the scale of this endurance test. Perhaps Juliet had dreamed up the assignation as a challenge, a measure of the scale of his obsession with her. When he arrived at the Customs House, he’d probably find that there was a dual carriageway running straight past the front door. He inched forward and realised that the path was beginning to fall away beneath his feet.
‘When you reach the edge of the cliff, the track starts to wind down. There’s a hand-rail and you’d better cling on. It will be slippery with all this rain.’
She was a mistress of understatement, he decided. Unable to see where he was going, he clamped his left hand around the wet wooden railing and put one foot gingerly in front of another. He knew that, ahead and below, flowed the river that divided England from Wales, but he could see nothing of it. On either side of him, trees swayed like monstrous exotic dancers mocking his timidity.
‘Soon the path forks. Make sure you follow the left branch. Steps lead down to the Customs House. The other way takes you to the lawyer’s cottage.’
He missed his footing and almost fell again. These must be the steps. He told himself that he was almost there. Inching down the pathway, he saw the dark outlines of a house loom in front of him: it must be the place. Yet why were there no lights? He felt suddenly sick and wondered if, for some unknowable reason, she had betrayed him. If he walked in, would he find himself greeted by Casper May, rather than his wife?
‘I’ll leave the door ajar. You won’t need to ring the bell.’
He found himself on a cinder path running up to a small porch. As he moved forward, he saw the front door open, framing the slender figure he couldn’t stop thinking about.
‘Come in, quick,’ she urged. ‘You’ll catch your death out there.’
As consciousness returned, Carl Symons became fuzzily aware that his head was hurting. Hurting as it had never hurt before. The haft of the axe must have struck him on the temple, a blow so sudden that he’d not even had time to raise his hands in an attempt at self-defence. He forced his eyes open, trying to blink away the tears of pain. The skin of his cheeks and hands was grazed and sore. He’d been dragged inside and laid out on the floor of the kitchen. The stone was cold against his flesh. By the flickering light of the candle, he could see a pool of blood. It had leaked from the wound in his temple and on to the ground.
The candle wavered. With a desperate effort, Carl tried to shift his head so that he c
ould follow the pool of light. Even the slight movement made him want to squeal.
A face emerged from the shadows and bent down towards him, as if to judge the extent of his suffering. Carl could see two hands as well. One held the axe, the other a sharpened stave.
The face was familiar to Carl but there was a strange light in the eyes that he had never seen before. The face came closer still but did not answer. Hypnotised, he watched as a tongue appeared and began to lick the pale lips. The axe was held aloft. White teeth bared in a savage smile.
Carl tried to form a single word and heard his own voice, croaky and pleading.
‘Please.’
But even as he spoke, the axe began to move towards him. Carl knew it was too late to beg for mercy. His bowels loosened.
Chapter Two
‘Think of it this way,’ Juliet said as she slipped his shirt over her own bare shoulders. ‘What could be more romantic?’
Harry gave her an exhausted grin. His body was aching and he was still breathing hard. The flesh of his back stung where she had raked him, but he didn’t care. They were lying with their arms wrapped around each other in semi-darkness, listening as the wind roared through the trees.
‘You mean just you and I together with a bottle of champagne to finish off by candle-light?’
She snuggled back under the duvet. ‘Exactly.’
He gestured at the redundant lamp and the wet towel on the bedside table. ‘Forgetting the storm, the power cut and the imminent likelihood of pneumonia?’
‘You’ve nothing to worry about, darling. I’ve dried every bit of you and you can see everything you need to see.’ She moved so that the light from the flame fell on her breasts. Her nipples were glistening from his kisses. ‘I’ve kept the promise the Tarot made. What more could you wish for?’
As they had bathed together before making love, he’d noticed the dark stain of a fresh bruise on her upper arm. So many questions lacked answers. Why did she stay with Casper? Surely it wasn’t simply through fear? She’d once told him that the sex she and her husband had when he was ready to make up after giving her a beating was the best she’d ever known. The day she’d said that, he’d been sure his relationship with her would die before it had come fully to life. But she always confounded his expectations. That was one of the reasons why he could never resist her.
He said quietly, ‘I wish he’d never hurt you again.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.’
‘Are you sure? What if he finds out about us?’
‘Stop fussing,’ she said, punching his stomach. ‘Casper will be tucked up in the Waldorf with some leggy teenager even as we speak. No-one’s going to spoil our fun. Right now, this is the safest place on earth.’
Not for the first time, the thought slid into Harry’s mind that he might be her revenge against Casper for all those leggy teenagers. But he was intoxicated, and not just because he’d downed a few glasses of champagne. If he was being used, he wasn’t sure that he really cared.
‘And what about Linda Blackwell? Can you trust her to keep her mouth shut?’
‘Linda and I go back a long way. She’s never let me down.’
‘She knows about you and me?’
Juliet put a warm hand on his thigh. ‘She knows there’s someone. Obviously. But no names, no pack drill. I gave her a call this afternoon, just before I rang you, to see if she could spare this place for the evening.’
‘What did you tell her?’
The hand became adventurous. ‘If you must know, I said that Casper had gone to a meeting in London, all to do with getting more Lottery money for Liverpool. He’s in good citizen mode at the moment, you know. Reckons there’s a knighthood in it for him at the end of the day. I told her that while the cat was away, this particular mouse was in the mood to play. She said no problem, she’d sleep over at Peter’s.’
‘Peter?’
‘Her son. You met him once when you came round to the office, remember? He’d popped in to see his mum.’
‘Right.’ He remembered a big surly man in his early thirties. ‘We didn’t really talk.’
‘Peter may seem a misery guts, but he’s been a good son to Linda, he took care of her after her husband died. She said she’d go round to his place tonight. She stays there sometimes, she didn’t even need to go home to pack a case. She said he doesn’t get out much, he was sure to be around.’
‘She sounds like the perfect personal assistant,’ he murmured. Her fingers were teasing him and he wasn’t finding it easy to concentrate, didn’t really want to concentrate.
‘She’s always been loyal. I was sure she’d help me out. Though when the power was cut, I started wondering whether my idea was quite so clever.’ She sat up and grinned at him. ‘Luckily, it’s all worked out for the best.’
‘I’m glad you found the candles,’ he said, unable to drag his eyes away from her lean body. The pale flesh was marked here and there with chicken pox scars, but he liked the blemishes that weren’t made by her husband. Each little imperfection reminded him that she was a real woman, not a fantasy he’d conjured up in a lonely dream.
‘Tell you the truth, I rang Linda to let her know what had happened. I had her son’s number in my bag. Only trouble was that not only are the phone lines down, but the battery of my mobile was just about to pack up. Luckily I managed to get through to her on the second ring and we had a quick word before the battery ran out. She told me where one or two things were. The rest I was able to work out for myself.’
‘Never stayed here before?’ he asked softly.
She bent forward and started to kiss the hairs on his chest, looking up only to say, ‘Does it matter?’
He patted her rump. ‘No. Besides, it’s none of my business.’
‘Then everything’s fine … Christ! What on earth was that?’
At first he thought a bomb had gone off outside the front door. The noise was so loud and close at hand that he was sure it must have been an explosion. Instinctively he closed his eyes and tightened his arms around her, fearing that the house was about to erupt in flames. But what followed was silence.
They looked at each other. Her eyes were wide with astonishment. ‘A tree’s fallen,’ she said, gently disentangling herself from him. ‘I can’t think what else it could be. Hang on a minute, I’d better get up and see what’s happened.’
She had left a towelling gown and slippers on the floor. Climbing out of bed, she slipped into them and blew him a kiss before disappearing downstairs. He stared at the timbered ceiling of the bedroom, his thoughts in a jumble. Soon he heard her footsteps hurrying back up the creaking wooden staircase. She was breathless, her hair and shoulders drenched.
‘I had a look out at the front,’ she gasped. ‘Do you remember seeing a huge sycamore as you came up the path? It’s toppled over on to the utility room at the side of the house. It’s smashed the roof in. God knows how bad the damage is. I haven’t dared go into the kitchen yet. If anyone had been in there, they’d have been killed. Poor Linda, it’s heartbreaking!’
‘Let me see,’ Harry grunted.
He struggled into his boxer shorts and picked up the flashlight that Linda evidently kept for emergencies. As soon as he entered the kitchen, he realised the scale of the calamity.
The utility room had, he guessed, been tacked on to the house in recent years. It was a single-storey extension which led from the kitchen and contained a washing machine, tumble drier and freezer. The trunk of the tree had torn through the roof and wall. Through the gaping hole he could see the starless sky. The window sills, the quarry-tiled floor and every work surface were covered in rubble and sheared-off branches. A large lump of masonry filled the sink. All the equipment was filthy and dripping wet.
He went back to the front door and put his head outside. The rain had eased to a steady drizzle. Even the wind was moaning more quietly, as if chastened by the scale of the wreckage it had caused. He walked across a patch of sodden l
awn and shone his light on to the tree. It must have been fifty feet tall. Now it was leaning at an acute angle, its root mass ripped from the ground, its crown hidden behind the devastated utility room.
He trudged back to the bedroom. Juliet was sitting on the carpet, with her back to the bed. He saw to his dismay that she’d put her bra and pants back on underneath the gown. Her face was red with temper and she was gripping the mobile phone as if she hated it, punching numbers at random in frustration.
‘Useless bloody thing!’ She sent the mobile skimming across the floor.
‘You were trying to reach Linda?’
She nodded. ‘I have to tell her, Harry. I owe her that, at least.’
‘Can’t it wait until the morning? There’s nothing anyone can do tonight.’
‘Have you seen the damage?’
‘It’s bad,’ he admitted. ‘Like you say, it’s a miracle no-one was hurt.’
‘Well, then. Harry. We must do something. I mean, we can’t just climb back under the covers and forget about it.’
Harry wanted to do precisely that, but care was needed if the evening were not to disintegrate into a squabbling anti-climax. ‘Okay, I see your point. But what do you have in mind? Let’s face it, this place isn’t overflowing with telephone boxes.’
‘What about your mobile?’
‘Left it at home. Pager ditto.’ He groaned. ‘I didn’t want us to be disturbed.’
She shrugged. ‘I suppose the only option is to try the neighbour. His house is only about a hundred yards away. We can throw ourselves on his mercy.’
‘Not a good idea,’ he said quickly. ‘Remember, you said that he and Linda don’t get on.’
‘I hardly think he’d refuse to let us use his phone in view of what’s happened.’
The icy note in her voice made her sound like someone he’d never met before. A warning sign. Yet he couldn’t help pressing. ‘Who’s to say he’s got a mobile?’
First Cut is the Deepest (Harry Devlin) Page 2