‘If you like,’ she said, sounding as if she really didn’t care either way.
‘See you then,’ he replied, ending the conversation as abruptly as he had begun it.
He went straight for her as soon as she opened the door to him. He hadn’t meant to. But it was becoming increasingly important to him to be sure of her, to know. And he thought the way to do it might be to shock her into some kind of submission.
‘Look, you could still be done for murder, you know,’ he told her bluntly.
They were standing facing each other in the imposing hallway of Maythorpe Manor. He hadn’t even waited to be taken into the now familiar living room before beginning his assault.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ she asked, slurring her words slightly.
She was definitely at least a bit stoned. Her eyes had that unnatural brightness about them. She ran the fingers of one hand through her white-blonde hair. He noticed that they were trembling slightly. She was wearing what he thought was a man’s shirt, with just one or two buttons done up. The shirt was so long on her that it hung almost to the hem of her short skirt. Kelly made himself not even look at her body.
‘Murder, I’m talking about. OK, almost certainly you couldn’t be done for the murder of Terry James, because you’ve been cleared of his manslaughter, but there’s always the murder of Scott.’
She looked genuinely astonished.
‘The murder of Scott? Me?’
It all came out then, the half-voiced suspicions he had never quite confronted before.
‘You have to see how it could look. I’m just playing devil’s advocate, honestly,’ he told her. ‘Your husband is cheating on you and maybe you just can’t live with it any more, in spite of what you say. You can’t stand even the thought of losing him to another woman. Then you have this intruder. He comes into your bedroom, wakes you both up. Everyone is startled. You think fastest. You grasp the opportunity. You grab the knife. You kill Scott and then you kill Terry James. It’s easy.’
She was studying him quizzically, her jaw slack.
‘It is? Oh yes. I get it. I understand. I leap out of bed, and tackle this six-and-and-a-half-foot-tall giant, grabbing his knife, which I then use on the husband I love while the giant stands meekly by and then allows me to stab him too. Several times. Easy. Yes.’
‘Something like that.’ Actually, Kelly had to admit, it did sound pretty silly when put that way. Maybe he just had too highly developed an imagination. He’d often been accused of that. But he didn’t mind that it sounded silly. He was, of course, only calling her bluff, seeing how she would react. There was no evidence at all, just the rantings of Bridget Summers, and Kelly doubted she would ever prove to be a very convincing witness. He just wanted Angel to vindicate herself. He wanted that more than anything, and that’s what he was trying to shock her into doing. But by voicing his half-formed suspicions he’d probably pissed her off to such an extent that she would never want anything to do with him again. And he supposed he couldn’t really blame her.
Her reaction was a complete surprise to him. Suddenly his reverie was interrupted by a great roar of laughter. Angel, head thrown back, was rocking with laughter. Eyes filled with tears, she was laughing so much she was shaking.
He stared at her in astonishment. Had his remarks been that funny?
Then as abruptly as she had started laughing she stopped.
‘Why are all the men I get involved with slightly mad?’ she enquired lightly.
‘I’m not mad and we’re not involved,’ he said.
‘No. Of course not.’
She stepped back, swaying slightly the way she did. Was it coke, or dope, or booze, or just the way she was? It really was true that he didn’t even know for sure when the woman was under the influence of some substance or just being herself.
She had another surprise for him. With one hand she started to undo her shirt. While he was still wondering what exactly she was up to, what trick she was playing this time, she removed the shirt and let it drop to the floor. He already knew that she was not wearing a bra. Then, before Kelly could even begin to gather his thoughts, she swiftly removed her short skirt too. She was not wearing any underwear at all. In the blink of an eye she was standing before him stark naked.
He took a sharp intake of breath. Those small pert breasts. The tiny waist. Legs longer than they should be. The small almost imperceptible round of her tummy. Smoothly translucent skin. She was stunning. Quite sensational.
He didn’t move. She had been staring at him while she undressed and continued to do so.
‘This is what you want,’ she said. ‘This is what you have always wanted. Why don’t you admit it? Why don’t you take it?’
‘Oh, Angel …’ He spoke softly, almost sorrowfully. In his head he didn’t want her to behave like that. But his body’s reaction was somewhat different. He could feel himself becoming aroused.
‘What’s the matter? Are you afraid to take what you want? Or maybe you aren’t capable any more …’
There was something unpleasant in her tone of voice – sarcasm and mockery, definitely, and an inflection of something else he couldn’t quite make out. But it wasn’t nice, he was sure of that.
Not that it stopped him. Not that anything could. She had pushed him too far, which he had little doubt had been her intention. Almost involuntarily he lurched forward and was on her before she could change her mind, indeed before she could move, his hands and mouth all over her. He must have had an erection all the time he had been talking to her, he suddenly realised. Not for the first time probably. He had not felt so urgently virile in years. He had known he was still capable of performing, all right, but not of anything as extreme as this.
He half carried her backwards, pushing her against the wall by the stairs, undoing his flies with one hand. She was so small, so light, so compliant. He manoeuvred her into position with far greater ease than he would have considered possible and entered her straight away, thrusting into her with all his might. Kelly had no time for foreplay. No time for any niceties at all.
She flinched slightly but did not utter a sound. It didn’t take very long for him to finish. He pulled out of her and stepped back, using one arm to lower her to the ground. She slumped straight to a sitting position on the polished wooden floor, as if she were exhausted. Her eyes were fixed on his, largely unfathomable, but triumphant somehow.
Kelly was astonished at himself, and a little ashamed too. She had issued the invitation. She had taken the lead. She had undressed before him and clearly waited for him to make the next move. She had even mocked him when he had not done so at once. But when he had eventually responded to her it had been in such a way he could hardly believe it. He had been like an animal, and he had never behaved like that before. But then no woman in his life had ever had that kind of effect on him before.
None the less Kelly felt very uneasy. Invitation or not, it had been almost like rape.
Fourteen
Kelly didn’t stay with her. He couldn’t. He had watched for a moment as she had sat on the floor, panting slightly. Her expression remained mocking. Then, without speaking, she had pulled herself upright and walked off, still naked, in the direction of the downstairs bathroom. He could only see her back view, but he was sure that her shoulders began to shake as she walked away from him. Then he heard her laugh out loud just before she closed the bathroom door behind her.
He didn’t like it. Not any of it. Suddenly he didn’t like her, or himself, or what had happened. Not one little bit.
He zipped up his flies, struggling to regain self-control, and swiftly left the house, making no effort to say anything to Angel. It gave him some satisfaction that as he retreated through the big front door he thought he heard her call after him.
It was only when he was in the MG that he remembered the electronic gates. God, he thought, he couldn’t even get out of the damned place without her help.
He drove slowly towards the cl
osed gates and pulled to a halt in front of them, leaving the engine running while he contemplated what to do next. Ultimately he had no decision to make. The gates suddenly started to part in that magical way he was becoming used to.
Angel had obviously decided not to attempt to keep him there. Well, that wouldn’t have been her style, would it?
There were no longer any police on duty, nor was there any sign of Ken James. Just one lone photographer waited outside. There was, after all, by now, not a deal of point in an across-the-board press presence. Angel had talked. She’d given the interview they’d all been after, and she’d given it to Kelly.
He drove thankfully through the gates, trying to ignore the tingling sensation in his crotch. In one way that brief, almost violent sexual act had been horrible. It had also been extraordinarily thrilling. He had to remind himself that the way it had happened was quite repugnant to him. Or it least it was to the man he had always been, he thought, as little waves of lingering excitement coursed through his body.
He made a vow to himself, a pledge. It was over. Whatever Angel Silver was up to, whatever she had or hadn’t done, whatever her future held, he would have no part of it. He would never see her again.
Pledges, however, like rules, are made to be broken. Kelly’s good intentions lasted precisely three days, thirteen hours and five minutes.
He had the usual problems getting through to her, ultimately leaving messages on her mobile and her home number and even sending a fax. There wasn’t much point in trying not to look too eager. She already seemed to know him too well.
She kept him waiting another day and a half before she returned his call. And during that wait every time his phone rang, at home, in the office, or the mobile he kept in his jacket pocket, he answered swiftly, hoping and praying that the caller would be her. He was sitting at his desk in the Argus newsroom when she finally phoned.
‘So what on earth might you want?’ she asked him, her voice mocking him in the way which already seemed to have become par for the course.
‘I want to see you,’ he replied throatily.
‘Do you indeed, Johnny boy? After the way you left the last time?’
‘It was wrong. What happened was wrong.’
‘Oh, don’t you want to fuck me after all then?’ More mockery.
He sighed.
‘Not like that, I don’t. No. I care about you.’
‘Really? Spare me, John. You should have seen the expression on your face. You looked as if you’d wanted to have sex like that all your life.’
He felt empty. She was half right, that was the worst of it. He looked anxiously around him. Even though he knew it was impossible, it seemed to him that everybody in the newsroom could hear her voice as clearly as he could.
‘Look, I can’t talk about it now,’ he said. ‘Can I come round tonight?’
‘Why not?’
A disinterested approach now, then just a slight change of tone. ‘Only don’t pretend to be some fucking born-again Christian, will you, Johnny? I’ve had enough of that crap.’
He arrived at Maythorpe just after eight, and was relieved that there were no longer any journalists at all waiting outside. He didn’t want too many questions asked about his visits. The gates were shut so he merely drove the MG up to them and sat waiting for them to open. He was beginning to get the hang of it now – well, the mechanics of getting into the house, if nothing else. The gates duly parted. He drove through, and after just a second or two’s thought, parked the car around the side of the house where it could not easily be seen from the road. Now that he and Angel had had sex, of a sort, all the goal posts in their relationship had changed. That was the way it always was. Kelly no longer wanted to advertise his business with her, whatever that might turn out to be in the future.
He walked to the front door, hunching his shoulders against the rain which had just started to fall, and again waited for a moment or two for her to open it in the way that she had done previously when he had visited Maythorpe. When she failed to appear he tugged at the big bell pull to one side. Still no response. Then he realised that the door was not even properly closed. Gingerly, he pushed it open. There was still no sign of her. He walked in, shutting the front door behind him. First he checked the big living room where he had so far spent most of his time in the house. Then he checked the kitchen, the formal dining room alongside it with its gleaming mahogany furniture, and the low-beamed book-lined library, the one room in the house, he understood, to have retained any of Maythorpe’s original Tudor structure. Back in the hall he glanced towards the section of wall against which he had pushed Angel the last time. Against which he had had her in the most direct animal fashion he had ever known.
Almost in defiance of his wishes, because he didn’t really want to remember it, the thought of that short sharp fuck caused the desire to rise in him again.
He walked over to the bottom of the stairs.
‘Where are you, Angel?’ he called.
For a few seconds there was no reply. Then her voice wafted down the stairs, husky, perhaps slightly slurred.
‘Why don’t you come on up.’
Like Mae West, he thought obscurely, or more likely a spider inciting a fly into her web. It made no difference. He had stopped even kidding himself that anything much could. He mounted the stairs with alacrity. All but one of several doors leading directly off the landing were closed. He walked to the one which stood ajar and peered inside.
She was lying naked on the bed, leaning against the pillows, eyes half closed. In her hand she held an overly plump cigarette. He recognised the pungent, heavy odour of dope at once, even though it had been a very long time since he had smelled it, let alone smoked it. The curtains were drawn and the room was lit only by candles. Mozart played gently in the background.
As ever she looked breathtakingly, wonderfully beautiful. Or he thought so, anyway. The pink glow of the candles flickered enticing over her pale body.
‘Do you want a drag?’ she asked languidly, holding up the joint.
He remembered how well he had always found dope went with sex. None the less he shook his head.
‘For God’s sake,’ she snapped, her mood changing in a second in that way he was becoming so familiar with. ‘I told you not to come here if you were going to be fucking sanctimonious.’
‘I can’t smoke, Angel,’ he said. ‘I really can’t. I can’t handle it.’
‘Fuck it, Kelly, I’m offering you a pull on a fucking joint. It’s not a syringe full of smack. I’m not trying to get you mainlining, am I?’
She glowered at him, those eyes blazing again.
He decided just to ignore the offer and get on with what he really wanted to do. He walked over to the bed and sat down on it next to her and began to stroke her. Very soon she started to move under his hands, sensuous as a cat. He couldn’t believe how much pleasure it gave him to feel her body like that, just to touch that translucent white flesh. She looked as if she had never exposed herself to the sun in her life, he thought, as he let his fingers trail the downy hair which ran in a thin line along the centre of her belly. Then he started to explore between her legs.
She began to move quite frenziedly. On an impulse he swung himself round, buried his head there and began to use his tongue on her. Almost at once she started to buck violently and to cry out. He was pretty sure she reached an orgasm, but, just as she appeared to do so, she pulled herself away from him.
Then it began. Really began. First she lay face down on the bed and asked him to enter her from behind. Then she made him lie down on the bed and sat across him. From somewhere she produced a silk scarf and wrapped it round his head, covering his eyes.
She continued to ride him while she took first his left arm and then his right and tied them to the bed-head. He didn’t even know what she used to tie him up. He couldn’t see, after all. He found it disconcerting but also strangely exciting. Certainly he didn’t protest. Not until he felt something wound round hi
s neck and be tightened. He started to struggle then. But it was too late.
Whatever his now buried suspicions about what might have happened at Maythorpe house the night Scott Silver and Terry James died, Kelly didn’t think for one moment that Angel was trying to kill him. He realised immediately what she was trying to do. He had no doubts whatsoever by now that her tastes in sex leaned strongly towards both the bizarre and the extreme.
He knew all about what he had always regarded as the quite mad practice of limiting the air supply to the brain in order to increase the sensation of climax. It had killed that gay Labour MP a few years back and had quite possibly killed rock star Michael Hutchence. Kelly had no doubt at all that was what Angel was trying to do to him, and he was terrified.
But by the time he started to protest, with his arms already tied, his struggles proved merely fitful. His vision was fading, and his brain felt fuzzy; however, his other senses did seem to heighten. After a bit he couldn’t see at all. There was only blackness in front of him and a grey mist inside his head. But he was sure his erection had grown six inches. He arched his back against her, pushing himself into her moist softness with as much strength as he could muster. The climax came swiftly then and it was truly amazing. The most extreme he had ever experienced he was sure of it. So good it was worth even risking his life for. In that moment of madness he was sure of that too.
Then he blacked out completely.
When he recovered consciousness, he had no idea how much later, but he somehow thought only probably a few seconds, she was still sitting astride him with that familiar triumphant look in her eyes. He felt wonderfully sated, wonderfully relaxed. Of course, he realised suddenly, some of that might be due to the joint she was holding between his lips.
He struggled against the restraints which still tied him to the bed, wanting to sit up, wanting to free himself, wanting to get rid of the joint which was making his head feel even more woozy. Then, equally suddenly, he didn’t want to get rid of any of it at all.
A Moment Of Madness Page 23