Vengeance

by Susan Lewis

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said hoarsely. ‘But I have to call Laurence.’

  ‘What for?’ she said, pulling her head back to look at him.

  ‘I just have to,’ he answered. ‘The story I did on Kirsten is going to print tomorrow.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So . . .’ His head fell forward against hers as the words knotted in his throat. Why did he have to call Laurence? To reassure him that he had had nothing to do with Helena’s visit to Kirsten’s that night? What difference did it make? Laurence would read the papers tomorrow just like everyone else, then Laurence would see for himself that he, Campbell, was being true to his word.

  Nevertheless, an hour or so later, when he was sure Helena was sleeping, he crept quietly from the bedroom and picked up the phone. As much as he dreaded hearing it, he wanted Laurence to tell him what had gone on over there that night. But though he let the phone ring and ring there was no answer from Kirsten’s house so in the end he went back to bed and pulled Helena into his arms. His own innocence would be proved when the story, that had had every word and every nuance checked and double-checked, came out tomorrow. He just wished it was going to be so easy to prove – to believe – in Helena’s innocence.

  32

  Laurence stared down at the newspaper, rigid with shock. The words swam before his eyes, all his senses were recoiling from the bitter distortions and slanderous allegations of the article that bore no resemblance at all to the one they had gone over with lawyers and was as damning as it was possible to get. Child-killer Battles for Custody, the headline in Dyllis’s rag screamed, and as the real horror of the story that followed began to register with him Laurence knew that he would never feel such anger, such hopelessness or such violence again in his life. Campbell, in leading them to believe he would tell Kirsten’s story under a by-line for the Express had not only betrayed them by going to Dyllis, but had done it in the worst possible way.

  Six years ago, Campbell had written, Kirsten Meredith had cold-bloodedly slaughtered – slaughtered! – her own child as an act of revenge on the lover who had jilted her – the lover she had now so ingeniously lured back into her life and who was preparing to do battle with his wife for custody of his four-year-old son, a custody he intended to share with the woman who had so callously killed his first child. All the details were there as to how Kirsten had gone about her abortion, making it sound like the pre-meditated, calculated act of a psychopath. Laurence’s stomach churned. He could hardly bring himself to believe that Campbell was capable of doing something like this.

  The article went on to say that this wasn’t the first time Kirsten had ‘murdered an innocent child’, there was at least one other occasion that was known of, so was she or could she ever be a fit parent? She had denied two fathers their right to their children, she had used her bountiful charms to beguile Paul Fisher into turning his back on his children, so what would she do if Tom McAllister ever threatened her in any way?

  And it got worse. According to unnamed yet reliable sources Kirsten didn’t actually want Laurence to win custody of his son. She didn’t want another woman’s child – in fact history proved that she didn’t want a child at all. All she wanted, now that she had Paul Fisher’s fortune, was Laurence McAllister. Pippa McAllister had stood in the way, luckily for Pippa she had escaped to Italy. Anna Sage had threatened to come between them, but as everyone knew, Anna – who had borne a striking resemblance to Pippa and whom Kirsten had never wanted on the film – had conveniently departed this world in an incident that was still surrounded by mystery. Jake Butler, the same reliable sources claimed, had threatened to reveal what he knew about Kirsten and now Jake Butler was no longer around to tell the story. Where, Campbell demanded, was it all going to end?

  Laurence’s fist closed around the paper. Fury throbbed in his temples. What the hell had ever induced him to trust a man like Campbell? What in God’s name was he going to say to Kirsten when she saw what Campbell had done? A burning pain closed around his heart as he thought of Tom – he would never win custody now, he was going to lose his son as surely as he was going to finish Campbell for this mindless act of treachery. The pain suddenly intensified, so bitterly and so cruelly that Laurence pushed himself away from the table and moved restlessly about the kitchen. For a wild moment he considered going upstairs, waking Kirsten and Tom and taking them away somewhere where no one would ever find them. He didn’t want Kirsten to go through this, she’d suffered enough and he had to do something to stop her suffering any more. She needed him now like she had never needed him before, but Jesus Christ what was he going to do? The allegations that she had been involved in Anna’s and Jake’s deaths were now so blatant that the police would have to investigate. He banged a fist into one of the oak-panelled cupboards then dropped his forehead against it. There was a frame-up going on here the like of which he couldn’t even begin to comprehend and the result of it was going to be that he would lose his son and Kirsten would lose her liberty.

  He snatched the telephone from the wall and dialled Campbell’s number. There was no reply. He tried the newspaper offices, Campbell wasn’t there either. He dialled Helena’s number and got the answerphone. He slammed the receiver down just as Jane let herself in through the front door.

  From the look on Jane’s face it was plain that she had already read the article. In fact she was carrying the newspaper under her arm and as she regarded Laurence with fearful eyes Laurence felt a bolt of panic rush through him. Even now he was unable to fully gauge what the repercussions of all this were going to be.

  ‘Where’s Kirsten?’ Jane asked softly.

  ‘Still in bed,’ he answered, running a hand over his unshaven chin. They’d been at the police station until the early hours – Jesus, what were the cops going to make of all this now? Laurence hadn’t slept well at all, neither had Kirsten, they’d been uptight after the interview and nervous about this story. He’d left Kirsten in bed to go out and get the paper and thank God she’d been asleep by the time he got back. But she would have to know sooner or later, there was no way of shielding her from it, though Campbell could consider himself fortunate that Laurence didn’t know where he was right now or both Laurence and Kirsten would be up on murder charges.

  Murder charges! Fucking murder charges! This was insane. The whole goddamned world was crazy.

  He turned away from Jane and clamped his fists on the edge of the sink, taking a deep breath to try and steady himself. Their whole lives were being blown apart and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing, except get the hell out of here now and take Tom with him. Tom, the innocent victim in a raging battle that had nothing to do with him.

  ‘Shall I make some coffee?’ Jane offered.

  Laurence nodded. The muscles in his arms were like rock, the frustration in his heart was overwhelming. He wasn’t going to walk out on Kirsten, it was what Dyllis wanted and the hell was he going to give her the satisfaction. The depth of his love for Kirsten was something Dyllis hadn’t reckoned on, but she was going to find out that this was one thing she couldn’t destroy. His eyes closed as the muscles in his jaw stiffened. But what about Tom? What the hell was he going to do about his son? Already he could feel his heart breaking apart as he saw Tom’s face when he realized that his daddy, his best friend, was sending him away. His daddy had made a choice between him and Kirsten and Daddy hadn’t chosen him. Laurence stopped breathing as emotion lodged in his throat. He couldn’t do it to Tom, he just couldn’t.

  ‘Here,’ Jane said, putting a cup on the draining-board beside him.

  Laurence turned his head to look at her and when he saw the concern and fear in her upturned face he smiled wearily and lifted a hand to stroke her cheek. ‘It’s OK,’ he said, ‘it’s going to be all right. We’ll get through this, all of us, we just have to take it one step at a time.’

  Jane nodded and smiled uncertainly.

  ‘I’m going upstairs to see Kirsten now,’ he said. ‘See to Tom will you. Try to
stop him coming into the bedroom for a while.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Jane whispered. ‘And Laurence, if there’s anything . . . Well, anything else I can do . . .’

  Laurence smiled. ‘I know,’ he said.

  Half an hour later Laurence was sitting on the bed with Kirsten cradling her in his arms. She had cried for a while, but the tears were gone now, she was trying to be strong and practical, but no matter what she said he was still refusing to leave, in fact he wouldn’t even discuss it.

  ‘I need to speak to Campbell again and see if I can find out exactly what’s going on,’ he said, kissing the top of her head and stroking her hair. ‘God only knows where he is but I’m going to find out.’

  ‘That won’t be easy,’ Kirsten said. ‘He’ll know how angry you are . . .’

  ‘Angry! I want to kill the bastard! Just what the hell does he think he’s doing? He signed the goddamned contract, he’s got to know there are no loopholes there that are going to save him.’

  ‘I think,’ Kirsten said, ‘that we’re going to have to decide what we do next. I mean, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get hold of Campbell and libel suits aside, there’s the custody hearing coming up and . . .’ she stopped as the telephone shrilled into the room and turned to pick it up.

  Before she could speak Campbell’s panicked voice came down the line. ‘Laurence! Laurence, is that you?’

  Kirsten handed Laurence the receiver.

  ‘Campbell?’ Laurence raged. ‘Where the hell are you? Just what –’

  ‘Listen to me, Laurence. Just listen! I’ve only just seen the papers. Helena and I have been with the police since seven o’clock. We just got back . . . Laurence, I had nothing to do with that article, I swear it. Dyllis went to print using my name.’

  ‘Do you think I’m buying that, you bastard! I don’t know what you and Helena are playing at . . .’

  ‘We’re not playing at anything, I swear it, Laurence. The police have questioned Helena after you saw them last night, she’s pretty cut up about it. She’s got nothing to do with what’s going on, I’d stake my life on it. She doesn’t know any more than you do.’

  ‘Then tell me, Dermott, what the hell was all that about round here last night? And where the hell is the story you wrote about Kirsten? Why isn’t that in the papers this morning?’

  ‘I don’t know, but you can bet your life that Dyllis is behind it somewhere. But listen, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to try and get myself a TV interview, If I can I’ll say publicly that Dyllis has gone to print under my name. I’ll talk about the article I’ve written and do whatever I can to get it into print. And while I’m at it I’ll try again to find out what I can about what’s behind Dyllis’s allegations. I know her secretary pretty well, she might know something. You’ve got to face it though, Laurence, she’s going to believe herself pretty watertight by now to have gone this far.’

  ‘And just how did she think she was going to shut you up? If, as you claim, you had nothing to do with that story?’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t think I want to know. I hope I’m over-reacting here, but I’m moving out of my apartment. I’ll call you again later to let you know where you can reach me,’ and the line went dead.

  ‘Would you care for something to drink, Ruby?’ Thea asked, rolling her eyes at Ruby’s bent head.

  ‘“ . . . Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgement of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication”.’ Ruby lifted her pale eyes from the Book of Revelations and fixed them on Thea.

  ‘Coffee?’ Thea said, not wanting to get into a debate on theological allusion, though she understood perfectly why Ruby had chosen to read her those particular verses.

  ‘Gin,’ Ruby said, closing the Bible.

  ‘It’s a bit early in the day to be drinking gin, don’t you think?’ Thea remarked putting the coffee pot down and going to the mahogany and brass cabinet.

  ‘Let’s forget my habits and discuss what’s really the issue here, shall we?’ Ruby retorted. ‘Did you speak to Laurence yet?’

  ‘No.’ Thea handed her a glass then went to sit on the sofa carefully crossing her legs.

  ‘Well did you try?’

  ‘Of course I’ve tried. He won’t speak to me.’

  The muscles in Ruby’s tired face seemed to collapse. ‘No, me neither,’ she sighed. ‘So what do we do, go round there?’

  Thea’s brows arched. ‘If you want to make a spectacle of yourself Ruby, go right ahead, but don’t expect me to join you.’

  Ruby’s glass hit the table. ‘What is it with you?’ she demanded. ‘I know you don’t approve of me, but for Christ’s sake, you brought the boy up. Don’t you care what damage this is doing him?’

  ‘Of course I care,’ Thea answered through gritted teeth. ‘But he’s a grown man now, Ruby. I’ve done everything I can to get him away from Kirsten Meredith and it hasn’t worked.’

  ‘So what, you’re going to give up, is that it?’

  ‘I don’t see any alternative right now and I suggest, for your own peace of mind, that you consider doing the same.’

  ‘Yeah, well he’s my son, my flesh and blood, and I guess that’s why I don’t give up so easy. I know you all laugh at what that kooky kid told me out there in New Orleans, but even the Good Lord couldn’t convince me that everything she said didn’t come true, ’cos it did. Everything that is, except about the child. Well I reckon that child’s Tom and that’s why I’m going to do something about what’s going on here.’

  ‘But Ruby you don’t have the first idea what’s going on here,’ Thea retorted, still stung by Ruby’s accusation that she didn’t care as much for Laurence as Ruby did.

  ‘Don’t I?’ Ruby said. ‘Well maybe that’s just where you’re wrong. Maybe I’ve been approaching this from the wrong angle, maybe there’s something I didn’t see that was staring me right in the face . . .’ As she trailed off thoughtfully, gazing into the transparent stripes of winter sunlight, Thea reached forward for her coffee.

  ‘Maybe,’ Thea said after a moment or two, ‘you should take a few more sessions with the counsellor I found for you, perhaps he could help.’

  Ruby blinked herself back from her reverie taking a few seconds to register what Thea had said. When she did her smudged upper lip curled. ‘You!’ she snorted. ‘Laurence found that counsellor . . .’

  Thea was shaking her head. ‘I found that counsellor, Laurence was busy trying to sort out his own problems at the time. You, I’m sorry to say, were adding to them, which was why I agreed to help out.’

  Ruby’s watery eyes narrowed as a glimmer of triumph shone in Thea’s. ‘I,’ Ruby said, pulling herself to her feet, ‘am going to rescue my son and grandson from the clutches of that whore who, just like the kook with the coconut told me, is trying to create a family that ain’t her own. And if you want to stand by and watch some baby getting blown to bits then you do that . . .’

  ‘Ruby, what are you talking about now?’ Thea said with a note of exasperation.

  ‘I told you before, the coconut kid told me a baby was going to get smashed. Well you and I know which baby that is, don’t we? It’ll be the one the whore of Babylon is carrying right now . . .’

  ‘Kirsten’s pregnant?’ Thea said unable to hide her surprise.

  ‘. . . . and like it says in the paper,’ Ruby went on, ‘she’s not backward in killing kids she don’t want and she’s got a pretty unique way of going about it. Well she can do what she wants with the one in her belly, but she sure as hell ain’t getting away with nothing where my son and grandson are concerned. I came here to see if you would lend me your support, but I can see that between the manicurist and the cocktails you just don’t have the time.’

  ‘Whereas between the gin and the counselling you do,’ Thea remarked, replacing her cup on the table.


  ‘I got any amount of time for Laurence,’ Ruby seethed.

  ‘Then allow him to sort this out for himself,’ Thea advised. ‘A pair of interfering mothers is the last thing he needs right now. He loves that woman . . .’

  ‘He just thinks he loves her. He don’t know what’s good for him, he never did.’

  Thea sighed. ‘Ruby, you’re forcing me to say things I’d rather not,’ she said. ‘But you haven’t been around Laurence’s life long enough to make a statement like that. Sure, he’s made his mistakes . . .’

  ‘And you could have stopped him.’

  ‘Ruby,’ Thea said in a long-suffering voice. ‘He’s not a child. I’ve tried to do what I thought was best for him, but he has to live his own life. I didn’t like the idea of him going back to Kirsten any more than you do, but we’ve both got to face the fact that he loves her. He loves her more than either of us and what he’s doing right now proves it.’

  ‘No, what it proves is that he’s not thinking right. Like it says in the Bible, he’s drunk with the wine of her fornication. Well we got to sober him up otherwise he’s going to lose that boy and you can’t tell me he loves that woman more than he loves his own son.’

  ‘I’m not trying to tell you that. All I’m saying is that he has to make his own choices and you and I Ruby have to stand by whatever his decisions may be. His aim right now is to keep both Kirsten and Tom – he might not succeed, but whichever one he loses he’s going to need us to help him over what will be one of the worst times of his life. So don’t interfere now, Ruby. Don’t judge, don’t smother and for heaven’s sake don’t go round there ranting about that ridiculous coconut episode or getting on your soapbox when you’ve got no more idea than I have if Kirsten’s pregnant. Just put your prejudices and your needs to one side and think of Laurence.’

  ‘Yeah, well as I see it that’s just what I am doing,’ Ruby retorted and downing the last of her gin she gathered up her bag, lit a cigarette and walked unsteadily out of the door.