No Escape

by Hilary Norman

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, on his knees, panting a little, his eyes not a bit apologetic.

  Lizzie stared down at her breast, and even in the dimmish light from her bedside lamp, she could see the red marks. ‘Have you gone mad?’

  Christopher crawled tentatively towards her. ‘I got a bit carried away, and I . . .’

  ‘And you what?’ She grasped the edge of the duvet, tugged it up over herself, covering her breasts, feeling suddenly cold.

  ‘I thought you’d like it,’ he said.

  ‘Why on earth should you imagine I’d like being bitten?’

  ‘Just a little love bite, Lizzie.’

  ‘It was a full-blown, anything-but-love bite,’ she erupted, intensely relieved that the boys were both in Marlow with Gilly Spence, the part-time nanny from Maidenhead they’d found when Lizzie had begun writing the second draft of her book. ‘And it bloody well hurt, you idiot.’

  Disappointment of the kind she’d seen once before, eight months ago, when he’d startled her with the unexpected roughness of his lovemaking, flicked across his handsome face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, a little coldly.

  ‘You were cold that night too,’ Lizzie said abruptly.

  ‘What night?’ he asked. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Just remembering that the last time you decided I might fancy rough sex was the night we celebrated the Vicuna offer.’

  ‘Rough sex?’ His eyes were amused. ‘Hardly.’

  ‘I’m not laughing.’ Lizzie’s upset was growing by the second. ‘Just wondering why my getting published should be some sort of catalyst for something like this.’

  ‘That’s absurd.’ His amusement was gone. ‘Utterly absurd, Lizzie, and not a little offensive when you know how proud I am of you.’

  She felt, instantly, ashamed, pushed away the notion that his untypical behaviour might have been rooted in some semi-subconscious power thing, a need to re-establish his dominance in their relationship.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do know that.’

  ‘Well then?’ He made a move towards her, then stopped. ‘See? I’m nervous to come near you now.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Idiotic and silly,’ he said. ‘A man could develop a complex.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Lizzie said.

  ‘No.’ Christopher shook his head. ‘My fault. I shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t.’

  ‘May I see?’ he asked, softly.

  She hesitated, the duvet still pulled over both breasts.

  ‘Please, Lizzie,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

  Still she made no move, but Christopher reached for the cover and pulled it slowly away, his hands and expression very gentle now.

  ‘Dear God,’ he said, still very quietly, seeing the marks. ‘Did I do that?’

  Lizzie didn’t speak.

  ‘May I kiss it?’ he said.

  ‘Kissing it better?’ Lizzie’s irony was soft, too. Old memories of Angela passed across her mind, before the accident, long before her breakdown, kissing away her scraped knees and bumped heads.

  Christopher touched his lips, with great gentleness, to the breast, then looked up at her. ‘You know I love you far too much to want to make you cry.’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ Lizzie said.

  His expression was almost boyish now. ‘Am I forgiven?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘So long as you never do it again.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Christopher said.

  ‘I’d have thought,’ she said, ‘that you’d know me well enough not to imagine, even for a moment, that I might enjoy any kind of roughness.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Though then again,’ Lizzie went on, ‘I thought I knew you too.’

  ‘And so you do,’ he said, then hesitated.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘Just, perhaps,’ he said, ‘not quite all of me.’

  It had, of course, happened again. Christopher was incapable, as Lizzie now knew, from the vantage point of several more years’ experience, of not letting it happen again.

  The next time was during that same summer.

  July the eighteenth. Another night in London without the boys, because Lizzie had attended meetings with Andrew France and with Howard Dunn at Vicuna to discuss her second book, and Christopher had been in surgery for much of the day.

  They’d dined at l’Escargot in Greek Street, and afterwards, leaving the restaurant, a man had come up to Lizzie and asked for her autograph, and she had been both embarrassed and delighted, and Christopher had teased her about it in the taxi on their way back to the flat, and the teasing had continued, gently enough, most of the way to bed, and almost immediately, after that, they’d begun making love.

  ‘My very own celeb,’ he told her, planting kisses on her belly.

  ‘You’re still the star of this family,’ Lizzie told him, running the palms of her hands over his shoulders.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to fuck a star,’ he said, parting her thighs.

  The word alone seemed to sound in the air like a warning, for Christopher never used it with her, certainly never during sex.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t what, star?’

  ‘Talk like that.’

  ‘Like what, fuck-a-star?’

  ‘Christopher, please.’ Lizzie wriggled away from beneath him.

  ‘Where are you going, fuck-a-star?’

  ‘I’m getting,’ she said, ‘out of bed.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘Oh, no, you don’t, my little fuck-a-celeb.’

  He leaned down heavily to one side, stopping her getting out that way, and then, as she began to turn the other way, he made a sudden grab for both her arms, pinning her down.

  ‘Not funny,’ she said, glaring up at him. ‘Let me go.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ Christopher said. ‘Oh, my God, Lizzie, you look so wonderful.’

  ‘Let me go, Christopher.’ She began to struggle.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, and straddled her. ‘Oh, yes, my Lizzie.’

  He bent his head, tried to kiss her, but she turned her face away.

  He bit her neck.

  ‘Jesus,’ Lizzie exclaimed, and kicked at him, saw that he was smiling, and kicked out again, harder, but that only seemed to inflame him, for he began to push her thighs apart again with one knee. ‘If you don’t let me go—’

  ‘What’ll you do, fuck-a-star?’

  Swiftly, smoothly, he released her left arm, lowered his upper body over her, trapping her more effectively, put one hand around her throat and squeezed.

  She stared up at him, struggling to stay calm, sudden rage just managing to keep down her fright. ‘I will wait till you’ve finished,’ she said tightly, ‘and then I will call the police and have you arrested.’ It was hard to breathe. ‘Let go of me now, Christopher.’

  For another long moment, his fingers remained on her neck, half choking her, and then, abruptly, he released her and sat back on his haunches. ‘Better?’

  She took a deep, trembling breath. ‘Now get out,’ she said, quietly.

  ‘No need for such a drama,’ he said. ‘Just a game.’

  Lizzie went on looking into his face, not moving.

  ‘Get out of this room, Christopher,’ she said.

  ‘You need to learn to loosen up a bit,’ he said.

  She took another, deeper breath.

  ‘Get out,’ she said.

  He got off the bed, walked naked to the door, opened it, and left.

  Lizzie waited for about ten seconds.

  And then she began to cry.

  Chapter Ten

  Helen Shipley had just emerged from DCI Kirby’s office on the top floor of the AMIT NW building, still smarting from her govenor’s remarks about their lack of progress in the Bolsover murder case – three weeks now since the discovery of Lynne’s body
– when Geoff Gregory let her know that Pam Wakefield, the victim’s sister, was waiting to see her.

  ‘Someone else to apologize to,’ Shipley sighed, heading down the stairs with Gregory. She’d woken up that morning with a headache, which her boss’s haranguing hadn’t done much to cure. Another encounter with a still deeply shocked and understandably angry relative wasn’t going to help.

  ‘I don’t think she’s here to have a go,’ said Gregory.

  ‘Can’t imagine why not.’

  They reached the first floor, turned left along the corridor, and Gregory, an old-fashioned man, stepped ahead of Shipley and opened the door of the interview room for her. ‘Here’s the Detective Inspector for you, Mrs Wakefield.’

  ‘Mrs Wakefield.’ Shipley walked in, shook the other woman’s hand.

  ‘I hope this is all right,’ Pam Wakefield said, nervously.

  ‘Of course it is,’ Shipley said. ‘I told you, any time.’

  ‘Coffee?’ Geoff Gregory asked.

  ‘Not for me,’ Mrs Wakefield said.

  ‘Me neither, thanks, Geoff,’ Shipley said.

  DS Gregory closed the door softly behind him.

  At thirty-three, the victim’s sister was the same age as Shipley, but looking at her now, she might have passed for forty-five. Bereavement in the natural sense was often damaging enough, but this kind of devastation often took a more dramatic physical as well as emotional toll. Pam Wakefield’s brown hair was greyer than it had been when Shipley had first seen her, her eyes, dark brown, as Lynne’s had been, were deeply shadowed and had a haunted look, and her mouth was pinched.

  ‘I found something,’ she said now.

  Helen Shipley’s pulse skipped as she sat down opposite her.

  ‘It was in a bag of Lynne’s.’ Pam Wakefield laid a small, white-backed card in the centre of the table.

  ‘May I?’ Shipley asked.

  ‘Of course. That’s why I brought it.’

  Shipley stood, leaned over to take a better look, taking care not to touch.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Mrs Wakefield said. ‘It’s not evidence or anything.’

  It was a business card belonging to a Michael Novak of a firm named Novak Investigations with an address in New Smithfield, E.1.

  ‘Any idea who Michael Novak is?’

  ‘None. Like I said, I found it in a bag of Lynne’s – actually, not really hers, it was one she borrowed from me a long time ago.’

  Shipley sat down again. ‘Take your time, Mrs Wakefield.’

  Pam Wakefield shook her head. ‘Nothing else to say. I lent Lynne this canvas shopper ages ago – months, I think, I’m not sure – and I’ve used it since she gave it back, but I can’t ever have emptied it out properly till last night, and that was in it, right at the bottom, wedged in the seam in a corner.’ She paused. ‘I phoned Novak Investigations, and it is a detective agency, which is obvious, I suppose. The woman I talked to asked why I wanted to know, how I knew about them, but I put the phone down. I shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘No reason why not,’ Shipley said easily. ‘If you didn’t feel like talking.’

  ‘I don’t like people who do that when they’ve dialled the wrong number. I usually say I’m sorry for bothering them, then hang up.’

  ‘Do you have any idea why Lynne might have been in touch with a private detective?’ Shipley asked.

  ‘No idea at all. Except the obvious, I mean.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Shipley wanted it to come from her.

  ‘Maybe Lynne was checking up on John.’

  ‘But you’ve said you didn’t think she was suspicious of John in that way?’

  ‘If she was, she never told me.’ Pam Wakefield paused. ‘Then again, she never really told me about John hitting her, not in so many words. I just knew.’

  ‘Yes,’ Shipley said, and waited.

  ‘Maybe someone just gave her this card. Maybe she never called them.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Shipley said. ‘I’ll certainly be trying to find out.’

  ‘So this could be useful?’

  Shipley saw the naked appeal in the older woman’s eyes.

  ‘You never know,’ she said carefully, not wishing to arouse false hope. ‘The small things sometimes are.’

  In an area in which so much striking new development had taken place, New Smithfield, a narrow, dark little cobbled cul-de-sac of disused warehouses, felt to Shipley forgotten and almost decrepit.

  There it was. Number twenty-nine, with, to the right of its front door, a rusted brass plate bearing six push-bell buttons, and a small plaque beside that – well-polished by comparison – bearing the name Novak Investigations Ltd.

  Shipley rang the bell, heard no buzz, and pushed at the door, which opened at her touch, heavily and creakily. The entryway was poorly lit and dingy, with a wide, aged-looking lift that had once, presumably, carried freight and passengers, but now bore only an Out of Service sign and large padlock on its iron gate.

  ‘Fifth floor.’ A voice, female, clear and lightly Scots, rang out from above. ‘Sorry about the stairs.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  Shipley regretted, as she regularly did starting up arduous staircases, having let her gym membership lapse two years ago. Only a block and a half from her flat in Finsbury Park, it could hardly have been more convenient, but Shipley, struggling for excuses at the time, had said that what she actually needed was a club near work, since she spent most of her life there.

  ‘All right?’ the voice called as she reached the third floor.

  ‘Bit dark, isn’t it?’ Shipley said, already breathless.

  ‘Sorry.’ The woman sounded cheery. ‘We keep meaning to brighten it up.’

  Shipley was on the final approach. ‘Isn’t that the landlord’s job?’

  ‘Huh,’ came the reply.

  Shipley reached the top floor, was met by almost dazzling brightness in the shape of three working light-bulbs and a warm, welcoming smile from a woman with jaw-length curly red hair.

  ‘Clare Novak.’ The woman extended her hand, shook Shipley’s firmly. ‘DI Shipley, I presume?’

  Shipley, who had telephoned a little more than an hour earlier, took out her warrant card and showed it to Clare Novak, who took a moment over checking it before stepping aside to show Shipley into the office.

  ‘Not much, but we like it.’

  It was one room, large enough for two desks, a wall-long run of filing cabinets, a tall, fully-laden book-case, a biscuit-coloured couch and a cheap coffee table. One of the desks was densely cluttered with papers and folders stacked on three sides of the computer and keyboard, a telephone barely visible in the jumble; the second desk the antithesis, perfectly organized, paperwork divided in trays. The whole room, even the messy part, looked and felt clean.

  Clare Novak invited Shipley to sit and offered her coffee. ‘We make quite decent stuff, so you might want to say yes.’

  ‘You sound like you’ve tasted ours.’

  ‘No, but I worked in hospitals for a while.’

  ‘Even worse,’ Shipley said. ‘I’d love some. Black, no sugar.’

  The red-haired woman opened a door just beyond the cabinets, vanished for a few moments, then reappeared holding two blue pottery mugs which she set on the table before sitting beside Shipley on the couch. Her movements, the detective observed, were lithe, her legs slim and long. Shipley had gained more than breathlessness when she’d stopped going to the gym; the semi-sedentary nature of her work, too many doughnuts on the run and pints with the lads at the end of the working day had added a stone to her weight. She was far from fat, had her dad’s fair hair – cut very short, but in no way mannish – and her mum’s nice grey eyes, but there was something about the nature of her job, about always feeling a need to be tough, physically and mentally, that she sometimes felt might have taken more than the edge off her femininity.

  Clare Novak was feminine, bordering on ethereal, clearly highly efficient and, at first meeting, probably nic
e into the bargain.

  ‘I’m really sorry Mike hasn’t made it back yet,’ she said. ‘He’s on a matrimonial job somewhere around Bayswater, but if there’s anything I can’t help you with, he’s on his mobile.’

  The coffee, Shipley found, sipping it as she gave the other woman a minimal explanation for her visit, was as good as promised. She watched Clare’s hazel eyes dull with dismay at the news of the Bolsover murder, then clear again as she resolved to be of assistance.

  ‘I certainly remember the name,’ she said, already up on her feet, heading for the computer on the more organized desk. ‘Not much else, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But your husband did have dealings with her?’

  ‘We’ll soon see.’ Clare sat down, keyed in the name and waited. ‘Yes, he did.’ She scanned the entry on her monitor. ‘Briefly, last summer.’

  Shipley stood up. ‘May I see?’

  ‘By all means.’ Clare got up again to make room. ‘Would you like me to print out what there is?’

  ‘Please.’ Shipley did not sit, just stooped to read the entry. ‘Not much.’

  The printer was already humming, the single page print-out emerging. Clare handed it to Shipley. ‘Do you want me to try Mike?’

  ‘Please,’ Shipley said again. ‘Soon as possible.’

  They met in a café in Queensway, close to Novak’s job, ordered two mineral waters, and Shipley sat, for a moment, sizing up the private detective. Informally dressed in jeans, open-necked blue shirt and leather jacket, he was nice looking, gentle, she thought, despite the slightly roughed-up nose.

  ‘I wish I’d known about this,’ Novak said. ‘I’d have been in touch, obviously.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Shipley said.

  He noted her dryness. ‘Was it reported?’

  ‘Only in the local press,’ Shipley allowed. ‘And there was a mention in one of the south-east TV news round-ups, but that was before the identification.’

  ‘Makes me feel a bit less guilty,’ Novak said.

  ‘Why should you feel guilty at all?’

  ‘Because I know how important it is to get as many facts as possible at the start of an enquiry like this.’ He shook his head, smiled slightly. ‘No other reason.’