Eve looked down. Her breasts were also deeply scarred, some still red raw with others old puckered and brown. One nipple had been nearly bitten through and survived in a purple puffy bruise. “I don’t think so.”
“Wot ‘bout me?” Master asked suddenly, looking up. “Wot ‘bout me prick? Is it big and yummy?”
She could not surrender to temptation. Saying small and scrawny might have caused a quick and easy death, but could just as easily cause many hours of torture. “Yes, big and masterful and handsome.” Because his legs were misshapen and short, his endowment did indeed appear absurdly large.
Master smiled and brought her a bowl of cold tomato soup in a mug. He took the mug away afterwards and was gone for several days.
The cold returned inside and out. It froze Eve’s body, and it froze her mind. Sometimes she decided that she mustn’t cry anymore as it brought her no gain and simply used more of her body’s sugars and salts, which she desperately needed to conserve. Then the loneliness and sick misery for the parents who would think her gone forever, would float back, suffocating, and she would cry after all, wheezing, choking and heaving.
Asking for things, which were mostly refused, did not bother Master at first. Eve begged for another bucket, this time filled with clean water to drink. Many times she had asked for the return of her clothes. She begged for another rug. She begged for more food, for daylight, to know how much time had passed, and she begged a thousand times for Master to let her go.
At first she promised to return but the simpleton was not so simple, and Master chuckled at the words. But then Eve begged for release the thousandth time, and Master slashed her across her shrunken belly with his bamboo cane. The welt took a long time to heal.
Having no memory of her capture, at first, when she was alone and could lie in silence, Eve closed her eyes and pictured that night. Glimpses returned sometimes, then retreated. For a moment she remembered standing barefoot and soaked, then an echo of the thrum of the car engine, and the blur of the rain on the car windows.
Almost imagining, she could visualise herself climbing into the back seat, For some reason, not the front passenger seat. Once inside the back seat, she had been given a swig of the wine bottle. But it had not been wine. She had slumped into unconscious sleep and remembered nothing more until gradually, her head thumping, she woke in the cell where she remained chained.
Then, crack by narrow crack, Eve began to remember slivers of what had happened. For some time she disbelieved her own memories. Then she suddenly knew they were too vivid and too alive and therefore utterly true.
She had been drenched, wearing clothes for the club in the High Street, too short, too tight, too colourful and too sexy.
Beaujolais. But a strange taste. And Eve glimpsed the face of the man who had handed it to her. Eve had rubbed her thumb along the side of the glass wine bottle. She depicted the feel of it.
Each day she studied the memories and brought back the pictures.
Kate brought the cakes. Cream puffs and French slices, Vanilla cheesecake, cannoli and custard tarts. They sat at the coffee table in front of the fire. With a sullen spit and crackle, the fire was burning low. David, the caretaker’s son, bustled in with a poker and lifted the two logs lying ready in the grate, crossing them onto the ashes. Sparks rose up and the crackle increased. The flames leapt.
“Here,” Kate said, holding out the plate. “Please have a cake.”
David’s mental health had improved with study and training. “I will,” he said, reaching out. “And can I have one fer me dad? Cos me dad’s a wonderful man.”
“Please take one for your father too,” said Kate.
Ruby watched the disappearance of her two favourite cakes and licked her fingers free of the cream which had oozed from her vanilla slice. “You said your brother-in-law was visiting?” She turned back to Kate. “Do you like him?” It was almost a challenge.
“Indeed I do.” Kate once again offered the plate, pointing to the last vanilla slice. “For a start, he looks exactly the same as my Maurice. How can you dislike a man that looks identical to the man you love?”
“But evidently doesn’t act the same.”
“Well, no.” Kate now smiled at Sylvia. “You might not like him at all. But he’s clever and generous. He’s the rich one of the family, earns a fortune I think, and always brings presents for me and Mia. He can be a little bit arrogant, but when you’re terribly rich, I think that’s inevitable.”
Sylvia shook her head. “Do you ever run into Mark’s arms, mistaking him for Maurice?”
Kate was laughing, when Harry said, “Why does he live mostly in Dubai?”
“Business.” The plate of cakes was emptying fast, and Stella scooped up the very last cheesecake. Ruby looked forlorn. “Banking. Money. It all seems to come from there, doesn’t it?”
Harry failed to tell her that Mark Howard was suspected of grand-scale money-laundering. “But he’s coming home. So, just a holiday?”
“Half and half,” Kate said through cream-cheese and crumbs. “Business too, I think. Maurice doesn’t talk about him much, but they’re terribly close. He’s so thrilled to have his twin brother back, and they plan to go off together for a couple of days. Fishing or something. Is it too cold for golf? That’s the two things they usually do together. I’ve planned a big dinner for Friday evening. But he’s got his own place so he won’t be staying with us.”
“Nearby?”
“Just outside Tewksbury. Backing onto those gorgeous bluebell woods.”
“Wonderful Bluebell,” Sylvia smiled at Ruby, “they’ve named the woods after you.”
An hour after Kate had left, Harry phoned Darcey Morrison. “I know it’s not your job, but I can’t phone the right guy since I don’t know him. I just thought you’d like to know the big fancy money-launderer Mark Howard, is coming to England this Friday. A limousine will pick him up from Gatwick, but he’s coming on a private plane from Dubai. Then he’s going to have dinner with your kid’s school teacher. Sounds crazy to me.”
“And to me. I’ll pass on the news.” Morrison cleared his throat and continued, “Just a small point, Harry, but who told you about the money laundering. I most certainly don’t remember going into such private details. Don’t tell me Maurice Howards admits such inside truths about his brother? If so, do please pass them on.”
“I do. I just have,” Harry pointed out. “But nothing came from Maurice. It’s the wife that told us about big brother’s visit, and some of the details that go with it. Not the money laundering, of course. We – well, we sort of guessed about that bit.”
“Really?” Morrison didn’t believe a word about the guesswork. “But it’s information that will be excessively helpful. I shall pass it on about the arrival in England.”
“Just make sure whoever it is doesn’t arrest the teacher instead of the money launderer. They’re identical twins.”
“Maurice dresses in stuffy tweeds and baggy jeans. According to Kate, Mark Howard looks the perfect businessman, iron and spotless to within an inch of his life Well. Obviously she can’t know what he really does.” Morrison cackled and hung up.
Harry looked down briefly at his own clothes, baggy black jeans and a thick blue woollen jumper over a pale blue shirt. Slippers shaped like kittens with their tongues hanging out, a Christmas gift from Sylvia. He stuffed his phone back in his pocket and stood a moment at the front door. He always made his private phone calls in the corridor or the bedroom. But this time he saw shadows outside. A child’s hand knocked.
Very slowly Harry went to answer the door. Maurice Howard was smiling as the drizzle trickled over his shoulders. His own daughter stood stamping her feet, suffering from the cold. Harry invited them in, but said, “Did you mean to pick up Kate? She left over an hour ago.” He was wondering just how much of his phone conversation this man had heard.
“Oh dear, yes, yes,” Maurice sighed. “Our plans always cross. So she’ll be at home now. I’ll hop o
ff then, and get home in time to make the tea.”
Wondering just how innocent this careful speech was meant to sound, Harry handed the small girl a towel, always kept on the hall dresser, to dry her face of the drips falling from her woolly hat, and said a pleasant goodbye as they left and he closed the door behind them. He then hurried upstairs to the bedroom where he made another private phone call to Morrison.
That Friday brought neither cakes nor personal visitors. With lightning crossing the sky with the flash of alien attacks and the explosion of thunder to follow, almost everybody from the Rochester Manor stayed indoors. With March kicking at the hilltops, everyone was hoping that the next week would finally bring better weather.
“Sunshine.”
“Birdsong.”
“Apple blossom.”
“Roast spring lamb for dinner.”
Morrison did not telephone, nor inform the Joyces in any manner concerning the arrival of Mark Howard at the airport. Harry and Sylvia both assumed that either their friend’s brother-in-law would have altered his time schedule, or at the least arranged to be whisked away fast enough to avoid the police. Sitting as usual by the fire but with mutters of restless impatience, Harry and Sylvia waited for some sort of brief information. It did not come.
The Cotswold Airport at Cirencester welcomed a small private aircraft flying in from another small private airport near Glasgow, which accepted international flights. The plane from Dubai arrived in Glasgow at four o clock in the morning, and within an hour had been refuelled and reprogrammed for the Cotswolds. Arriving at six fifteen, a tall dark man carrying nothing but a briefcase descended the steps and jumped into a black limousine already waiting near the runway. A uniformed official piled two suitcases in the car’s boot, and the driver sped off immediately.
The car and its passenger were not taken to the large Georgian house on the outskirts of Gloucester, and instead it drove sedately on to a snug cottage just over the border in Wales.
Here on the ivy-clad porch, Mark Howard was met by his twin brother Maurice. While the chauffeur unloaded the car, Mark and Maurice walked indoors and wandered into the tiny room already sweltering around the fire lit some hours previously. Here they sat, for there was a great deal to talk about.
The first thing Mark asked was, “How’s Milton?”
Maurice answered with a brief nod. “Fine. No change.”
“Great,” said Mark. “OK. Now down to business.”
43
Cycling the country miles proved more pleasant than Lionel Sullivan had expected. The dismal and sometimes freezing weather cleared his mind. He sang to himself quite frequently, making up his own words to tunes he remembered. Sam Smith’s Stay With Me became Chop the Legs Off, That’s the Key and a few old Beatles songs and sang, Will You Still be Alive When I’m Sixty Four.
Having lost some weight in prison, Lionel discovered his legs more pliable, but the bulges of fat that had shrunk had left the stretched skin behind them, and the first time he looked in a full-length mirror, he had laughed. Never having been good looking, his new-found flab didn’t bother him. Perhaps, he wondered, the newly stolen bicycle would trim him down, although he needed practice, not having ridden one since he was twelve. The only things he would have liked to see shrink were his hands and feet. But then, extremely large hands had proved excessively useful over the years.
The planned escape from prison, having proved a remarkable success, had seemed enough at first. Lionel had then realized that the lack of any following plan was a mistake. Assuming he would hide in the same forest, after all, it had hidden him well for more than a year previously, would lead to repeat adventures and the repeat of the pleasures he dreamed of, had sadly proved entirely wrong. He knew where bloody Harry bloody Joyce lived in that fancy big house, and he thought it wouldn’t take long to find his wife – either dead or alive. Hopefully, Ike had already clobbered the bitch. But – he’d have fun exploring.
It did not turn out that way. He quickly realized the[ police were after him, now knew exactly what he looked like, and weren’t all the idiots he’d once thought them. His wife no longer occupied their own old house and he had nowhere to go.
It was after several weeks that Lionel found his new home. He had stayed in several country pubs but had rarely risked more than one night in each. More often he had slept in barns, or even in the open air under bushes and trees. A cold experience but not so bad since his stolen clothes were already ruined, being covered in mud, leaves and soaking moss and no longer bothered him either.
Then he found his new home and was delighted. It was a smaller shed than the one he had so enjoyed two years before, but being half packed with hay, it kept him warm and offered a place to hide should it ever be necessary. A few rusty farm implements might be useful as tools or weapons, and the building itself was leak-free and set well back from the road on an abandoned property. At least, Lionel was fairly sure it was abandoned, since clearly no one occupied the nearby cottage, and the fields were asway with long knotted grass and weeds.
Remembering other hideouts, Lionel knew of interesting options, but travelling on foot or on bicycle didn’t encourage long treks to the other end of the county, or even further. He intended finding and eventually living in a place he had used once, not for murder or cosy tortures. But for storing some very special mementoes. But that was still some distance away. He’d get back there eventually. In the meantime, every abandoned shed beckoned to him and offered considerably more than shelter.
Having never watched his wife enjoying her television interviews, Lionel was sure that, having heard of his escape, she would have run off to a police safe-house. He knew exactly where Harry Joyce now lived. But that old bugger was rarely alone, and therefore he needed some time to plan both murders.
Snuggling into the hay with a sausage roll he had pinched from a nearby bakery while ordering a cup of tea, Lionel Sullivan had time to plot his revenge, taking time off to mentally relive some of his more detailed murders and the dalliance before and after them.
On one trip into the local village, he had bought a trio of elaborate hat pins, from a quaint antique shop, and knew he would enjoy these through the night if sleep was slow in coming.
He did not really know where he was, although he had passed several signposts on the way. Having seen the same roads so frequently as a coach driver, he had an idea that he had passed on into southern Wales, although wasn’t sure of details. But for Harry Joyce, he would have to go back the way he had come. He also needed to steal a mobile phone, for this was the only way he could imagine discovering the whereabouts of his wife. First phone her, then get rid of the phone before it could be traced and then steal another.
Plans crowded in and he slept with a smile, a frayed clump of hay decorating his almost bald head, and the hat pins piercing his left thigh. A small trickle of blood was smeared across his right thigh. The hat pins, which had amused him with some tips decorated in minute plastic flowers, and one with a puppy’s head, he had first used in a straight line up the solid flesh. When he’d popped them out to use on the opposite leg, the blood left behind had oozed with almost voluptuous repetition, and he had wiped it upwards with his thumb. Then he had sucked the thumb. Even his snores sounded satisfied.
He kissed her very slowly, both hands at the back of her waist, pressing her closer to his own body. Sylvia was not wearing the usual. She wore a shirt of turquoise paisley beneath a loose cream cashmere jumper. She was barefoot, as he was. Her long skirt, however, was navy silk.
“That gorgeous silver hair of yours looks marvellous with everything.”
“Thanks, my love. But it’s easier dragging around shops if you just look for the same thing.”
“Daft female.” Harry pulled her down onto the bed. The heaped quilt sank beneath them. “You look absolutely breath-taking. Besides, it’s only Kate and Maurice we’re going to see. Dinner with the big bad wolf’s brother.”
“Then I should be wearing a red ho
oded cape.”
He laughed and kissed her again. “We’ve got time,” he suggested, looking over her shoulder at the piled pillows.
“Harry, no.” Sylvia brushed down her skirt. “Look, it’s getting all creased. That’s the trouble with silk. Perhaps I should wear polyester or something. And anyway, I managed to put lipstick on a little while ago, and it took ages because of all the wrinkles. And now you’ve probably kissed it all away and I’ll have to start again. And honestly, Harry, we don’t have much time for anything. Maybe a quick glass of wine. But we shouldn’t be late. We’ve got a lot to talk about this evening with these people, especially Maurice, and I don’t want to look rude to Katie. She’s nice and I’m sure she doesn’t know a thing about Mark’s criminal activities.” Sylvia paused for breath and realised that Harry was still smiling lasciviously at her, his hands very firmly on her cream cashmere shoulders. “Harry, honestly,” she continued, looking earnest. “we can’t. I’ll have to change my skirt, and then the jumper won’t go, and I’ll have to change that too.”
Harry’s smile was more meaningful as he bent his face towards her as he murmured, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Sylvia closed her eyes.
Two hours later they arrived at Kate and Maurice Howard’s small house, only fifteen minutes late.
Sylvia wore the same shirt and jumper over loose navy silk trousers.
They had seafood cocktails followed by roast chicken and a hundred roast vegetables, finally finishing with – cake! “It’s glorious,” Harry breathed. “Every fantastic mouthful. I can’t thank you enough. We have a good cook at the manor but tend to get very similar dishes over and over. And your twin brother, Maurice? I was hoping to meet him.”
The smile did not reach the eyes. “Too busy. And tomorrow he’s leaving again. Saudi this time.”
It was a small house, and although the garden stretched to the fir trees behind, and several small Japanese ornaments on high shelves appeared both originally antique and exquisitely beautiful, there was no appearance of obvious wealth. It seemed exactly as it was, the comfortable home of a school teacher with taste and a working wife.
The Games People Play Box Set Page 39