Cruel Venus

by Susan Lewis

  Allyson forced a smile. ‘I’ve got a lot on my mind. But I’m OK. You have a good time with Aunt Mary. It’ll do you good to get out.’

  ‘I won’t be long,’ Peggy assured her. ‘We’ll just get a quick bite. I should be back by eight thirty.’

  Allyson looked at her mother’s ageing, kindly face and felt a lump rise in her throat. The one person in the world she would never doubt, would always be able to trust.

  As she watched her drive away she was thinking of Shelley and what Shelley had said in the office today, about loneliness and rejection, and mattering to someone so much they would never leave. All the pain she was suffering now Shelley had been suffering for years, which made her want to hold Shelley in her arms to comfort her – then cut her out of her life to punish her. If Shelley knew what it was like, how could she have inflicted it on someone she cared for?

  Dear God, there were so many complex and conflicting emotions that made up a woman like Shelley – or any woman, come to that. Except maybe Tessa. Tessa was different, and Allyson knew she wasn’t even close to understanding the complexities and conflicts that made up someone like her.

  Going back into the house, she went to check on her father and found him sleeping on a sofa in his den. She stared down at his peaceful, jowly face and found herself wondering what happened to the lucidity when the confusion took over. Was it still there somewhere, operating on another level like a sound that existed but couldn’t be heard? Or was it tangled so deep in the subconscious that it could never be found? Who ever knew what really went on in someone else’s mind? Whether they were sane or mad, evil or righteous, tormented or even dead. Did the mind carry on working after death? No-one knew, because there wasn’t a way for anyone to know. But if it did then she hoped, for her father’s sake, that mental tangles came straight again so that he wouldn’t have to be afraid any more.

  Kissing him on the forehead, she closed the door quietly behind her, then returned to the kitchen. The clock said six thirty. That should give her plenty of time to do everything she had to do – she’d just sit down for a few minutes first though and try not to think any more.

  The lights in the edit suite were off. All eight monitors glowed in the darkness, each projecting an identical image. Tessa was alone for the moment. Will, the editor, had received a call from the parking attendant, reminding him that the barrier went down at eight so he should move his car out to the street.

  Tessa was seated at the console, watching, enthralled by the house that was filling up the screens in front of her. It was tall, gothic, with stained-glass windows and a forbidding air. The effect on the sound track whistled the same eerie cry as the wind that was sweeping through the streets of Fulham outside. Naked tree limbs swayed across the face of the moon, fallen leaves gusted over the brittle, frosted lawn. The camera tracked in, angling from side to side as it approached the front door. Footsteps crunched on the dark, gravelled path.

  The front door was opening, the dubbed effect of a creak stretched with the ominously slow swing. The hall beyond was in pitch darkness, just two narrow strips of blue light shining through the cracks in a far off door. The camera inched tentatively towards the light, a thin, high-pitched strain of music began to move with it.

  This sequence was a cheat. It wasn’t the author’s North London home, it was footage imported from Hammer. But the next mix, as a hand pushed open the door and the screen filled with blue light, took them into a huge, brightly lit room full of every imaginable type of doll. This was the writer’s home.

  Later would come the interviews; with the writer, and with her neighbours who swore the dolls screamed and flew in the night. But first the camera was going to show the sublime horror of the collection.

  They lived on every shelf, every chair, every surface of the high-ceilinged room. A thousand staring eyes, unseeing, unspeaking, yet all-knowing. Bisque-headed, shiny-faced and smiling infinitely winsome smiles. Dressed in delicate, hand-sewn clothes; small, malignant spirits locked in wax, china and porcelain forms. Girls, boys, babies; haughty women, evil old men. Mouths were open; eyes were slanted. Teeth were bared, fury was a solid, unmoving mass. The music dipped and swayed. Cute little dancers and regal skaters poised to come alive. Heavy chords blasted the entry of malformed puppets, and trumpeted angrily at scowling sailors. The camera panned sharply, then settled in benign observation of inscrutable Orientals and halted songsters. A sudden screech emanated from the frame of a spiteful Turk. Insolence and supremacy blazed from the frame.

  Tessa didn’t move. Her concentration was total as the thrill of fear stole through her senses.

  Behind her the door opened, then quietly closed.

  ‘This is brilliant,’ she murmured to Will, eyes still riveted to the screen.

  A piano was playing, surging through the discord of frantic violins.

  Faces flashed across the screen. Ugly, old, tormented, sad. Human emotions trapped in tiny torsos of plastic and clay. She felt Will standing behind her. Her heart was thudding.

  A drumbeat exploded. The first blow knocked her unconscious.

  The grating, staccato squeals from Psycho knifed through the room. A frenzied cutting of crazed, laughing mouths, and fiendish eyes. A shadow bulged on the wall, a nefarious enactment of the final four blows that took her life.

  Allyson was running. The wind rushed in her ears, winter’s trees were reflected in the moonlit puddles her feet splashed through. When she reached her car she took out her phone. She dialled quickly as she got in and started the engine.

  ‘Shelley?’

  ‘Ally? Where are you? You sound upset.’

  ‘No. I fell asleep and Mummy was late back. I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t coming.’

  ‘It’s OK.’ Shelley’s voice sounded strained too. ‘I’m stuck in traffic. I should be there just after nine.’

  Allyson rang off, fastened her seat belt and pulled away from the kerb.

  Will, the editor, returned from the car park to find the editing room in silence and darkness. He’d thought Tessa would wait, but it seemed she hadn’t. Disappointed, he switched on the light and looked at a schedule on the wall. Later, when he talked to police, he couldn’t remember which came first, noticing the droplets of blood on the chart, or the terrible, gut-wrenching smell. All he knew was that when he turned round the sight of Tessa’s mutilated skull, the pooling blood and crudely spattered brains loosened his bladder and caused him to sink trembling to his knees. A moment later he was vomiting as he staggered like a drunk to the door.

  ‘Shelley!’ he attempted to shout. ‘Shelley!’

  Allyson was already at the restaurant by the time Shelley arrived. Both women looked pale – the strain of this meeting was harsh.

  ‘There’s a bomb scare somewhere in Chelsea,’ Shelley said. ‘They’ve closed off half the roads.’

  ‘I heard it on the news,’ Allyson said. She felt strangely groggy, as though she’d been asleep for days.

  Shelley ordered a drink while Allyson toyed with her own.

  ‘About Bob,’ Shelley said.

  Allyson closed her eyes. She didn’t want to hear it.

  ‘I’m not stupid enough to think you can forgive me,’ Shelley said, emotion acting like a burr on her voice. ‘I just want you to know that your friendship has been more precious to me than anything else in my life. I wish I’d known how to value it. I wish I wasn’t realizing all this when it’s already too late.’

  Allyson’s eyes were shining with tears, but none fell.

  ‘Jealousy is a powerful monster,’ Shelley said, ‘and I’ve always been jealous of you. But I’ve loved you too.’ As she spoke she was reaching inside the large carrier bag on the floor beside her.

  Allyson watched her take out a box, then returned her eyes to Shelley’s face as she said, ‘This is for you. A token of our friendship.’

  As she pushed it across the table Allyson suddenly laughed. She stifled it quickly, but suddenly laughed again.

  Sh
elley looked at her curiously.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just been … Oh God, I don’t know how much more of today I can take. Thank you. What is it?’ But as she started to unwrap it Shelley covered her hands.

  ‘Maybe you’d better wait until you get home,’ she said. ‘It might make us both cry.’

  Allyson looked into her lovely face and felt her heart filling up with emotion. It was all going to change, everything that had been so familiar and cherished, so central and necessary to them and who they were, was moving on to another plane and there was nothing they could do to stop it. ‘I don’t want to lose you,’ she whispered.

  Shelley swallowed the lump in her throat, then looked up as her drink arrived. She was about to make a toast when her phone started to ring. It was ringing for a long time as she tried to locate it in her bag.

  ‘Shelley Bronson,’ she said.

  Allyson watched her face as its expression turned from surprise, to confusion, to horror and shock. ‘What is it?’ Allyson said, feeling her blood run cold. ‘What’s happened?’

  Shelley was ending the call. ‘Of course,’ she was saying. ‘I’ll come right away.’ She clicked off the phone and stared at Allyson, her face bloodless and stricken. ‘It was the police,’ she said. ‘Apparently Tessa’s been murdered.’

  Allyson’s head started to spin. She thought she might faint.

  ‘They want me to go back to the office,’ Shelley said. Her eyes drew focus on Allyson. ‘Maybe you should come too.’

  Allyson couldn’t move. Her limbs were weighted with fear. ‘Yes,’ she managed to say.

  Shelley stood up and started to put on her coat. Allyson watched her, then forced herself to her feet and reached for her coat too.

  ‘I had to park miles away,’ Shelley said. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Just down the road.’

  ‘Then let’s take your car. Don’t forget your parcel,’ she added, then turned to lead the way out.

  By the time they got to the office the place had been cordoned off and the press was starting to gather. Flashbulbs popped through the rotating police lights as Allyson and Shelley got out of Allyson’s car. A couple of policemen spotted them and ushered them through. Neither of them answered the shouted questions and demands to know what had happened.

  Inside there seemed to be policemen everywhere, some in uniform, some in plain clothes and others in overalls. They saw Will sitting at a desk with a detective. He looked deathly white and as though he’d been crying. A short man with cropped red hair and a stern face approached them.

  ‘Mrs Jaymes,’ he said, recognizing Allyson. ‘Detective Inspector Hollander.’

  Allyson shook his hand. ‘This is Shelley Bronson,’ she said.

  Hollander shook hands with Shelley.

  ‘Where did it happen?’ Shelley asked.

  ‘Through there,’ he answered, pointing towards the editing room.

  Suddenly Allyson started to cry and stuffed a hand into her mouth to try to make herself stop. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  Shelley slipped an arm round her. ‘Is she … still there?’ she asked.

  Hollander nodded, then looked round as they were joined by another man and a woman.

  ‘Detective Constable Maine,’ Hollander said, introducing the man. Then, indicating the woman, ‘Detective Constable Lister.’

  Both officers looked grave. Neither Allyson nor Shelley knew what to say.

  ‘We’re going to need you to answer some questions,’ Hollander told them. ‘Mrs Jaymes, perhaps you can take Detective Lister somewhere quiet. Miss Bronson, Detective Maine will take a statement from you.’

  Allyson took Detective Lister to her office. It all seemed so unreal. It was like an invasion, the forensic scientists, the ambulancemen, so many police swarming all over the place. And the phones were ringing off the hook. For God’s sake someone make the phones stop ringing!

  She answered the detective’s questions as succinctly and helpfully as she could, knowing that by now everyone must be thinking she did it. She had the biggest motive, all she needed was opportunity. But it was all right, there was no need to panic. They would find out who did it, then everyone would forget they’d suspected her. But her alibi for the past three hours was so weak that it drove white-hot fear into her chest, and blinded her to where she was and why she was there. This was no longer a place she recognized, it wasn’t her office, and the person who was with her had mistaken her for somebody else.

  But at the end of it, after hours and hours of questions and black coffee and watching her colleagues come in and out, they told her to go home.

  She looked round for Shelley, but someone said Shelley had already gone, so she walked outside into the cold, garishly lit night and followed a policeman as he struggled to open a path through to her car. As she got in she heard a TV reporter telling the world that she’d just come out of the building and as far as they knew no arrests had been made yet.

  Allyson drove in a trance back to the flat. She was afraid of being alone, but didn’t know who to call. She’d have to speak to her mother and make sure she was OK. She thought of Mark and felt a sudden longing cut through the numbness. But then she thought of Bob, and the numbness returned. After that all she could see in her mind’s eye was the image of them carrying Tessa’s body away in a bag. It was an image she would never forget.

  When she got home the message light was blinking wildly on her machine. Ignoring it she went to pour herself a drink. Her hands were shaking badly. She had to do something to calm herself down.

  She sat in a chair, her coat still on. Everyone thought she had done it. They all believed she had finally flipped and smashed Tessa’s brains in. She started to cry, so afraid she didn’t know what to do. The phone rang. The machine picked up the call and she listened to a reporter’s voice telling her which paper he was from and asking her to call back.

  After a while she went into the hall and stood over the bags she’d carried in from the car. Two of them were from Waitrose. The other contained Shelley’s gift. She stared at it for a long time, bizarre and frightening thoughts whirling round in her head. Her skull felt so tight it might be crushing her brain. Finally she knelt down on the floor and knocked over the other two bags as she took the gift out.

  Minutes later the wrapping on Shelley’s gift was open, the lid of the box was cast aside. Allyson’s hands moved slowly, clumsily over the contents of all three bags. Her mind was barely registering her movements. Finally she was holding a wad of rolled up fabric. She looked at the ugly brown marks. Then carefully she unwrapped it, not wanting to drop the heavy object inside.

  When it came free she looked at it, expressionlessly, breathlessly. It was the fan-dancer Allyson had given Shelley at Christmas, beautiful and bronze, and sculpted with such sublime expertise that the light seemed to bring it to life. It was the figurine Allyson had given Shelley at Christmas. It was the elegant Marcel Bouraine Allyson had given Shelley at Christmas … It was the figurine … The fan-dancer … Her chest was heaving, her hands were shaking …

  Then suddenly the monstrous reality of what had happened erupted like a bomb in her head and as the figurine fell to the floor, she slumped back against the wall, quivering with terror and starting to gasp uncontrollably.

  Chapter 17

  THE FIRST SIGNS of spring had been swallowed into a dark and chilling late afternoon. The sky outside was grey, the suddenly still air was like invisible ice. Detective Constables Lister and Maine had been up all night, so had many of their colleagues. This was a high-profile case and the boss wanted an arrest by the end of the day. It was looking increasingly likely that would happen.

  DC Lister stifled a yawn. She’d taken a quick shower in the WPCs’ locker room earlier, but it hadn’t done much to revive her. DC Maine didn’t look any better.

  Inspector Hollander was scanning the early statements they’d taken, and lists of already documented evidence. Though he didn’t look up, he was listeni
ng closely as the two detectives briefed him.

  ‘The time of death has been established as being between seven fifty and eight o’clock,’ Maine said. ‘Cause of death was pretty obvious, list of suspects tentatively increased to three after Shelley Bronson called late last night to report a bronze figure missing from her flat. She says she first noticed it had disappeared after a visit from Bob Jaymes, Allyson Jaymes’s husband. She’s not saying she’s sure he took it, because apparently Allyson Jaymes has got a key to the flat and could have let herself in any time without Shelley Bronson knowing.’

  ‘And this figure was some sort of gift from Allyson Jaymes?’ Hollander said, looking at the scribbled notes that had been added to Shelley’s statement.

  ‘Yes. It’s also now been confirmed as the murder weapon since Allyson Jaymes brought it in this morning.’

  It was DC Lister’s turn. She was a tall, large-boned woman with greying hair and deep-set eyes. She had taken Allyson’s statement the night before, she was also who Allyson had asked to see when she and her mother, a proud but frightened-looking old lady, had come to the station earlier with what Allyson was claiming was a gift from Shelley. ‘She says she gave the figurine to Shelley Bronson at Christmas, but Shelley gave it back to her last night, wrapped up in a bloodstained make-up gown.’

  DI Hollander’s face showed his dislike of the way things were going. ‘So has someone talked to Shelley Bronson since we got the figurine?’ he said.

  ‘I did,’ Maine answered. ‘I went over to her flat earlier. She got pretty upset when I told her we had the figurine and what Allyson had said about it. She says the gift she gave Allyson last night was a Lalique clock, an item from her own collection that Allyson had always admired.’

  ‘So where’s the clock now?’

  Maine looked at Lister, who shook her head. ‘No-one seems to know,’ he answered.

  Hollander tugged at his lower lip. ‘Things aren’t looking very good for Mrs Jaymes, are they?’ he commented. ‘We’ve got at least a dozen witnesses who claim to have heard her threaten to harm the girl, and in some instances even kill her. We all know her husband left her for the girl and now, according to Shelley Bronson, she believed her new boyfriend, Mark Reiner, was also having an affair with the girl. Has anyone talked to Reiner?’