The Velvet Caress

by C. P. Mandara

  Chapter Twenty-Five - Jennifer

  The date of the Great Fire of London was the second of September, sixteen hundred and sixty-six. The number of the devil did not go unnoticed. Trust Mark to have that in his phone code. The man was incorrigible.

  When I entered the code the phone immediately came to life and there were messages flashing left, right and centre. The latest one was from Leyland Forbes, and that alone caught my interest. After our last episode at Escape I'd pretty much figured those two would be mortal enemies, so what was he doing texting my husband? There was only one way to find out.

  Opening up the message it was to find just three sentences, but one of them took my breath away.

  Pretty sure Redcliff is behind the poisoning. Also, your mother-in-law appears to work for the Mafia. PS. If your wife wants a divorce tell her I'm happily waiting in the wings. L

  Okay, two of those sentences took my breath away, but surely the second one couldn't be right. God no. Things like that didn't happen in this day and age, did they? It would certainly explain a few things if true… but the mafia? Surely not. I screwed my face up in disbelief and shook my head.

  Having already tried to convince myself that the previous episode I'd had with my mother had been a figment of my imagination, I now had to rethink the whole thing. This wasn't good. I'd only been awake half an hour and I already thought I was crazy. Still, in for a penny in for a pound. Perhaps I should try that guy Mark mentioned. Oh hell, I'd forgotten his name too. What was wrong with me? The meds I was on must be doing funny things to my head. My memory was normally perfect. Oh well. Perhaps I should just scroll through his contacts and hope inspiration struck at the right time. It was worth a shot.

  About forty-five minutes later I was going cross-eyed. Mark must have had over a thousand people in his contact list. Keeping on top of that lot must have been nearly impossible and trying to find a name was like trying to find a needle in a… forget the haystack, I was going to go with football pitch. When my eyes began to glaze over I was thankfully rescued by my lunch.

  It turned out that my thanks were a bit premature. Lunch was a dried up cheese roll, a fruit salad and a flapjack. Did no one realize I hadn't eaten for days? What was the meaning of this outrage? I pouted. The only saving grace was that I'd been given a generous mug of tea. It came with two sachets of sugar, and even though I'd never taken sugar with my tea, I tipped both of the damn things in there. Think woman, think!

  After ten minutes of frantically trying to come up with the mysterious name and achieving absolutely nothing, I gave up. Instead I watched reruns of The Mentalist and did my best to rot the enamel on my teeth. Sparing a thought or two for Mark, who was probably now pacing up and down a cell that had more bars than downtown London, I did think I should probably give the scrolling thing another go, after I'd watched the BBC news, of course.

  In the middle of the news, which was storms and tumbling stock markets, Mark's phone rang. I wondered whether I should ignore it. He probably wouldn't think much of me answering his phone, especially if it happened to be a business call. Picking up the vibrating handset and looking quickly at the screen, it was to discover the name Khalil. The name sounded familiar. Could that be the one he had mentioned?

  'Hello.'

  'Who is this?' The guy's voice on the other side of the phone sounded quite deep, and at a guess I'd have said he was from middle-eastern descent.

  'Mrs Matthews. I think Mark told me to speak to you when he gave me his phone.'

  'Ah, okay. Well I'm very pleased you seem to be feeling better, Mrs Matthews. You gave us quite a scare. Is it possible I could speak to Mark? I have some things I need to share with him.' He sounded as if it was urgent. Apparently it wasn't a good day in the world of business.

  'Ah, about that. I think we have a problem.' I then proceeded to tell him about the events that had just unfolded. From the one-sided conversation with my mother, to the nurse who'd looked like she had murder on her mind. I still wondered if I was being paranoid, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

  'Do you think I overreacted?' I asked, when I'd finished blurting out all the details.

  'In all honesty I have no idea until I check into the details, although by the sounds of it he's in trouble. We need to get him out of there as soon as possible. If there is any truth in this mafia tale he won't be safe in prison. Do you think you can square up your story with the cops ASAP?'

  'They're coming tomorrow morning. Is that soon enough?'

  'I should think so, but if you can talk to anyone this evening try your best to set the story straight.' There were sounds of a keyboard being tapped upon and it looked like Khalil was going to be busy over the next few hours.

  'Okay. I'll do what I can. Oh, one more thing before you go. I have no money. Is it possible someone could lend…'

  'Don't worry about a thing. I can get someone over there within the hour to sort that out.' Well, I guess that was one less problem to worry about. Thanking him, I then asked to be kept abreast of any updates before hanging up. Oh lord.

  I took a deep breath. Okay, my first plan of action should be to see if I could talk to a police officer in order to set my story straight. Picking up the hospital telephone I called reception and asked whether someone was available to come to my room. After being put on hold for what seemed like three-quarters of an hour I was told there had been an incident on the third floor and that everyone was busy at the moment. If they managed to get it under control quickly, the receptionist said they might be able to drop by and see me, but otherwise I might have to wait until tomorrow morning. I frowned, but there wasn't a lot else I could do. Anyway, Mark was a big boy. He could take care of himself for a night. Drumming my fingers upon the bedside table I tried to recall the last few hours of my visit to Escape. Was there anything I had missed? Could I give an accurate description of the guy who had brought me the poison? What was I going to say about my crazy little episode earlier? I certainly needed to get my story straight before tomorrow morning. Piecing the little details together was going to keep me busy for the next hour or so.

  When I was happy with what I was going to say to the police, and was as comfortable as I could be with it, I let my eyes close for a minute. I had no idea why I was tired. According to the doctor and nurses I'd been asleep for the last couple of days, so you'd have thought I'd have managed to catch up on my beauty sleep. This, unfortunately, wasn't the case. I was dog-tired and within seconds my body succumbed to the wonders of dreamland.

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Mark

  The interview at the hospital had not gone well. I told the officers my side of the story, and they looked at me as if I had grown two heads. They obviously did not believe a word I was saying. This came as no great surprise to me. At the moment the two bastards sitting comfortably in front of me were nearly positive I had tried to murder my wife, and all they wanted was a tiny shred of proof which they would then try and use to put me away for a very long time. The questions went round and round. The same questions, asked in many different ways, but all leading to the same thing. Did I try and kill my wife? Thankfully, as I wasn't lying, I didn't have to think about my answers, so they quickly got very frustrated with me. Sticking to the basics I just flung the simplest answer back to each and every question. Whilst they did have some fun with me for being in an S&M club, and there was no getting away from that, I didn't share anything else that had happened before that night. If Jennifer wanted to go down that route I'd play it by ear with the best advice my lawyer had to offer, but for now I fended them off with what I had.

  Eventually they got bored of me and sent me down to the station. On the way out I managed to unfasten my Rolex and throw it to one of the nurses on duty. I was never going to see it again after I'd been booked in at the police station, so she might as well have an early Christmas bonus.

  'Thank you for saving my wife's life,' I said by means of explanation. The poor woman looked absolutely flabbergasted and imme
diately tried to give it back to me, but it was kind of hard as my wrists were in handcuffs and I was being marched swiftly towards the exit. In the end she gave up gracefully when one of the officers told her to keep it. Then I was firmly directed into a white police car and in no time at all we were at the station.

  The formalities were completed with little fuss, at least from myself, and they had my fingerprints and mug shot within a few short minutes. I even smiled for the camera. I didn't smile so much when all my personal effects were taken away, though I was expecting it. I then had an endless series of health questions to answer before they led me to a holding cell. Everything considered, my mood wasn't too bad. The weight that had just been taken off my shoulders was immense. My wife was alive! After all that had happened to her somehow she'd managed to come out of it in one piece. I couldn't quite believe my luck. She was awake, and I was fairly certain that most of her brain cells were firing on all four cylinders. Unfortunately, or perhaps because of that, I was in a prison cell. She was clearly pissed at me, and with good reason, but I reckoned that if she just gave me a chance to speak to her and straighten things out we might have a chance.

  So, here I was, in a cell, ecstatically happy. A wife who was alive presented a world of opportunities, and I intended to make her see sense at my earliest opportunity. I wondered if it would be too early to fuck the living daylights out of her? Frowning, I decided I wasn't going to touch her until the hospital had given her the green light, and even then I was going to seek a second opinion. Would there be long-term side effects? Would she make a full recovery? These were burning questions I needed answers to, but I wasn't going to figure out anything until I'd got myself out of this cell.

  Unfortunately the metropolitan police had been rather busy when they booked me in, and they didn't have time to get my phone call sorted, but I was sure that in the next hour or two they would get around to it. I just needed to hang tight until then. To be fair, there wasn't much else I could do.

  My cell had a single sheet of stainless steel for a bed, and a thin grey plastic mattress rested upon it. There was also a toilet, a sink, and a tiny window right at the top of the back wall that delivered a thin streak of pale light onto the concrete floor. Being incarcerated wasn't going to dampen my mood though. Oh no. I was going to sit here on my rock hard mattress and figure out how to get Jen back. God had quite generously placed a whole heap of thinking time into my lap, so I might as well make use of it. Now, how did you get a really pissed-off wife back on your side? Chewing on that one for what seemed like ages (I guessed about half an hour, but as I didn't have my watch it could have been three years) I came up with several ideas.

  The most obvious one was to get her talking and actually listen to her this time. I had a feeling most of our differences would be straightened out with a decent cup of tea and a heart-to-heart. After we'd shared our tales of woe, I suspected I was going to want to kill her father even more than I did already, and I wondered how Khalil was doing, trying to locate the bastard. It was only a matter of time before he found him. A person can't disappear off the face of the planet these days. There's always a trail. Sooner or later we'd find him, and when we did I intended to have some fun with him.

  Other options for reconciling my marriage involved lots of sex, more sex, preferably of the kinky variety, good food, flowers, a down-on-my-knees apology, and an American Express platinum card, although the effectiveness of any of the above bar sex was shaky, I thought. If they all failed, I guessed I could always try bribery. There had to be something she wanted - financial independence, stardom, plastic surgery, five thousand pairs of shoes - I just needed to find out what. I'd just have to hope she wasn't hell-bent on trying to get me sent down. My lawyer was good, but I already knew who's side a jury would be on, and it wouldn't be mine. If she could lie convincingly to an audience I was going down for at least the next twenty years or so. Fuck, that was a sobering thought.

  Pacing up and down the small cell, to work off some adrenaline, I finally decided to take a seat. If I wanted to concentrate I was better off sitting down. When my backside touched the hard mattress, however, my back threw a fit and streaks of painful lightning shot through me. But it was a bit too late to wish I'd never got myself entangled with Sophia last night. Patting my pockets, I tried to locate the bottle of oxycodone I'd been given, before remembering that the police had taken it off me. Why hadn't I taken the damn tablets back at the hospital? I cursed myself for being so stubborn. Shaking my head, I figured it was just going to be one of those days.

  The hatch to my cell was then pulled back noisily, and when the officer in question was satisfied that I wasn't hanging from the ceiling or preparing to do him a world of harm, the door opened.

  'Do you need to make a call?' His tone was brusque.

  Hell yes, I needed to make a call. I didn't much fancy spending the best years of my life in a garish shade of prison jumpsuit orange.

  'Yes please,' I replied politely. Most police officers lack the sense of humour gene, so it's always best to err on the side of caution. Anyway, it wasn't long before I was in front of a telephone with five or ten minutes to spare.

  Interestingly enough, most TV dramas will have you believe that you only get one call when you've been put in jail. This is not the case. I was told to tie up any loose ends I had at home, he put a lot of emphasis on the words children and pets, before telling me that it might be wise to get my lawyer involved too. Tell me something I didn't already know.

  Punching in Khalil's number, I took a deep breath and waited. He answered on the third ring.

  'Hello?' It took me a moment to realize I wasn't calling on my cell and that he'd have no idea who I was.

  'It's me, Mark. I'm calling from a holding cell, downtown. Jennifer woke up, screamed at me, and now everyone thinks I'm a killer. I'm not having a good day.'

  'I know. Your wife just rang me on your cell phone.'

  'Hmph. So she can do as she's told. Who'd have thought it? What did she say? Is she hunting for London's best divorce lawyer as we speak?' I rolled my eyes. I needed to get out of this place and over to the hospital as fast as possible. There were things I needed to say.

  'Not exactly,' Khalil drawled.

  Well, if she wasn't busy working out how to get a divorce, then what was she doing? Seeing how much money I had stowed away in my offshore accounts? I wished her good luck with that; my financial advisor seemed to have hidden my money all over the world and not even I could keep up with him.

  'Brace yourself. You're probably not going to like this much.' Khalil adopted his favourite 'this is probably going to hurt' tone. Sinking into the plastic orange seat beneath me, I wondered what bad news was coming my way now.

  'Jen doesn't hate you. She screamed her head off in order to get you out of the ward and somewhere safe.' Khalil then took a deep breath, but I couldn't help butting in.

  'Well, I think that's good news, if that's true.' I then frowned. 'But why do I need to be somewhere "safe"?' That part didn't make sense at all. 'And being put behind bars with a lot of ex-cons is hardly somewhere safe, if we're splitting hairs here.'

  'We believe Jennifer's mother has something to do with the mafia.' Khalil used his I-am-deadly-serious voice. I still snorted. I couldn't help it.

  'And my mother is married to Santa Claus. Come on, Khalil. This isn't funny. I'm in jail.'

  'Jen had a visit from her mother while you were absent. She says she was only half awake, and had wondered if she was dreaming, but remembers the conversation quite clearly. The gist of it is that her mother thinks you are responsible for her being poisoned and she intends to "dispose of you", or something very similar.'

  'Bah. That's a load of rubbish.' My imagination could run at an impressive stretch, but that was taking things too far.

  'Well, that's what I thought, but until we know for sure we should tread with caution. The reason Jen screamed was because a nurse was getting ready to stick a syringe into you.'

&
nbsp; 'It was probably meant for her. I bet they've pumped her full of so many drugs she can barely see straight.'

  'Quite possibly. Anyway, that's all I have for you right now. Stop wasting time and call your lawyer. He's going to have a great big smile on his face after he learns of all the work you're going to be putting his way this week.'

  I shook my head and groaned. 'You're right. Guess I'd better make that call. One more thing before I go, though. If Jennifer needs anything, cash, car, clothes etc. can you help her out? Just until I get myself out of here?' To my knowledge she had nothing at the hospital. I'd meant to sort out a couple of items of clothing and leave her some money just in case she woke up, but didn't want to play with fate. Now I couldn't do a thing.

  'I'm already on it. Catch you later.' I just had time to utter a quick thank you before the click indicated that the phone call had been terminated. Yet another serious bonus was headed Khalil's way. Life was never dull in my world, but I don't remember it ever having been quite this exciting, either. If exciting was a good word for describing your wife nearly dying and being put in prison. Scrap exciting. Downright terrifying was more accurate. Right, I needed to concentrate on phone calls.

  Getting hold of Jonathon Hammond, my legal counsel, was another matter entirely. I got through to his secretary who agreed to pass a message across to him as soon as he became free. That was the best I could hope for. I hung up the phone slowly and sighed. This was turning out to be one hell of a day.

  Thankfully the rest of my first day in prison was uneventful and very dull. It was also extremely uncomfortable. My back had scabbed over and any movement sent ripples of agony through me. I needed to be laid out flat on my stomach, preferably on a comfy bed, for at least a couple of days or two in order to get past the worst of it, but it didn't look like that was going to be possible. Still, it was a small price to pay for my wife being alive. I'd go through it all again if I had to. Although sleep was its usual elusive self, I felt some kind of peace wash over me. It appeared the darkness was receding, albeit slowly.