Beautiful Losers: A Novel of Suspense (12 page)

twenty-five

I described what happened.
Grant drove back into town and made a quick fruitless search of side streets, then took me to the Bayshill Clinic.

“I think it's time we had a chat with Mr. Stannard,” Grant said before dropping me off. “We'll make it plain that his interest is not appreciated.”

I couldn't ignore the warm thrill of righteous vindication. At last I was being taken seriously; someone was listening.

Triumphant, I phoned Chris. It was supposed to be easy. A quick call to tell him what happened; say it was being dealt with, that I was fine.

“Christ, I could kill the little shit for this.”

“But it's all right now.”

“It isn't, is it?”

Disappointment descended like smog. “It's a whole lot better than it was.”

“What are you doing?”

I flinched, immediately and inexplicably guarded.

“Are you going back to the flat, coming home, or what?”

“I can't jump ship. I've got clients. I'll go back to the flat, have a shower, get changed. Thank God it's Friday.” I managed a smile.

“You'll return a little later than usual then?”

“Yes.”

“You'll come straight back?”

“Is there a problem?”
Why do you want to know?
was what I really meant.

“No, of course not.”

“And Chris?”

“Yeah?”

“Don't tell anyone I was rattled.”

“Kim, it doesn't mat—”

“I don't want anyone to know. I don't want that bastard ever to find out I was terrified.”

Kirsten Matherson's parents were waiting for me. They seemed brittle. I wasn't sure whether there had been a difficult journey, a private argument, or it was my fault for being late. I apologised unreservedly.

“Accepted,” Marie Matherson said, clipped. Tall and graceful, she had straight blond hair, cut short. She wore a dress of palest green that fitted her lithe figure perfectly. By contrast, her husband was thickset,
barrel-chested
, and his suit looked like it was a size too small.

They sat down and I brought them up to speed on Kirsten's progress. Marie seemed relieved by the improvement in her daughter's condition. Frank Matherson merely grunted. Hard to say whether it meant approval. It occurred to me that he'd been strong-
armed into making an appearance.

Striking a neutral tone, I looked at Marie Matherson and said, “I gather she's interested in fashion design.”

“I've tried to encourage her, but she undervalues her abilities.”

“That's extremely common in anorexics,” I assured her. “There's a tendency to focus on negatives. It's connected to a general problem of low
self-esteem
.”

“Are you saying it's our fault?” Matherson burst out. His neck flushed red.

“Not in the least,” I said, taken aback.

“I hold that damned modelling agency responsible for this,” Matherson roared.

“Please, Frank,” Marie warned.

“You should never have got her involved.”

He blames his wife, I thought, watching the minor domestic drama unfold, family dynamics endlessly fascinating—and revealing. I tried to change the mood.

“I see you have two sons.”

“What's that got to do with you?” Matherson snarled.

“I'm trying to help, Mr. Matherson,” I said, issuing a straight look.

“They're quite a bit older than Kirst,” Marie said, clearly trying to head off the possibility of further confrontation.

“How have they reacted to Kirsten's condition?”

“They're concerned,” Marie said. “They're working abroad at the moment so they're shielded from the problem.”

“That might be a good thing. Having an anorexic in the family can make siblings feel helpless. It stirs up all types of diffuse emotions of anger and uselessness, which can make them feel guilty.”

“Guilty? I've never heard such crap in all my life,” Matherson raged. “Come on, Marie,” he said jumping to his feet. “I've had enough.”

Marie looked at me in apology and stretched out a hand to her husband. He snatched at it. I noticed her gentle squeeze. A contrived picture of unity, and for whose benefit, I wondered?

Before he ploughed out of the consulting room, Matherson turned to me. “The only people who should be feeling guilty,” he said, his spit flying onto my face, “are those bastards responsible for our daughter's illness.”

I was almost out of the door when the police called.

“We picked up Stannard,” Grant said. “He was hanging around outside your apartment block. Came up with some
cock-and
-bull story about viewing the flat below.”

My stomach gave a sickening lurch. I put a hand out to the wall to steady myself. Lizzie's flat, I realised, the creep. “What was his defence for this morning's episode then?”

“He got clever, said he was unaware of a law preventing two people from having a conversation. He maintained you'd made the first move.”

“He said what?”

“According to Stannard, you were waiting to speak to him outside Waterstones. He said you looked deliberately in his direction and that you waved to him.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“Were you looking for him?” The serious note in Grant's voice made me suddenly feel as if I were the problem.

“I thought he was following me.”

“So you admit you looked.”

“I admit nothing.”

“Calm down, Miss Slade,” he said in a way guaranteed to agitate me. “I'm trying to get a handle on what actually took place.”

Giving myself the equivalent of a mental shake, I repeated slowly, “Stannard followed me. Does he deny the other things?”

“Yes.”

I throbbed with irritation. He'd done a good job selling his side of the story. A brief silence signalled stalemate.

“Whatever the ins and outs, Stannard knows we've got his number,” Grant assured me. “He says he intends you no harm. I believe he's genuine in that regard. I think he really believed because of your, how can I put it … er … shared difficulty …”

“My face is not a difficulty,” I said. Hell, what happened to the change in public opinion following the Paralympics? What happened to the new attitude towards disability?

Grant coughed as though he had a hairball in his throat. “I only meant that he's a victim. He must have been a
good-looking
man before his accident.”

I thought I was going to choke with frustration. For a man to make such a comment about another man displayed the extent of Stannard's manipulative ability to engender pity. He would always have the drop on me. “I was forgetting,” I said with a cynical laugh, Gavin Chadwick's words clanging in my ears. “We're all victims nowadays. We're all flaming losers.”

“There's no need to adopt that tone.”

My cheeks burnt red. I tried to strike a more conciliatory note. “So that's the end of the matter, is it?”

“I'd say so,” Grant said crisply. “It's really unlikely he'll bother you again. I think in his own way he's sorry.”

twenty-six

Heather Foley welcomed Kyle
Stannard into her home with a frozen smile. My God, she thought, experiencing a tang of fear. The afflicted side of his face looked, well … terrible. She supposed it could have been due to some sort of illness, a form of palsy, perhaps, but a dent in the lower half of one cheek together with the general sloping appearance of his features, suggested something far more invasive. Poor man, she thought, and how brave. Fed on a diet of cheap romantic novels, she felt sure that he must have done something heroic to sustain such dreadful injuries. Best not to look. Best to make every effort to avert her eyes when she spoke. The pity was that his good side was indescribably beautiful. She thought he had the face of a fallen angel.

“Thanks for seeing me at such short notice,” Stannard said, shaking her hand. “I really appreciate it.”

He had a nice voice too, she thought, especially bearing in mind the damage to the left side of his mouth. And he dressed well. She'd already noticed the car. The more expensive the mode of transport, her husband once told her, the more serious the buyer. She reckoned Mr. Stannard could afford to pay top dollar for her home.

“I see it was built in the
mid-nineteenth
century,” Stannard said, alluding to the plaque attached to the northern side of the building.

She hoped he was not going to ask too many questions about its history. That had always been her husband's department. “Would you like coffee before we start, or afterwards?”

“The house first, if you don't mind.”

“Good,” she said cheerily. She'd devised a plan based on biblical principles. Like the wedding at Cana, she was going to save the best until last.

She started off with the dismal mausoleum of a kitchen, its only advantage size. Cheap cupboards and
Formica-topped
units clung precariously to walls that were pockmarked and cracked. The worn
linoleum-covered
floor had farmyard appeal—it looked dirty no matter how hard it was cleaned. A trellis of exposed and rusting pipework poked out from a recess housing a
decrepit-looking
Aga; hard to remember that it was an iconic range of cooker. The whole room needed knocking down and rebuilding. Stannard looked around and gestured for them to move on. She quickly led him through to what she called a utility room but in reality was storage. Remembering a snatch of history, she informed him that it used to be the maids' quarters. Stannard gave it a cursory glance, walked to the back door and opened it. It looked out onto a courtyard.

“Would you like to go outside?”

“Later,” he said decisively.

She walked him back through the long dark hall to a cluster of rooms. The sitting room was comfortable enough for her needs. Florally decorated, it had
sash-windows
and a
wood-burning
stove. Then there was the study, a darkly masculine chamber, the lair from which she presumed her husband had discussed and organised his sordid assignations. It still pained her to walk inside. Stannard's observations were brief and he spoke little. Either he was feigning disinterest as a means to drive down the price, or he was genuinely unimpressed; neither was to her advantage.

Time to play her ace. She led Stannard to the other side of the large
polished
wooden-floored
hall and threw open the door, a cascade of brilliant sunshine casting Stannard into the light. Like a vampire after sunup, he shot a hand to his face, automatically shielding his bad side with the set of details he carried. Acutely embarrassed, she pretended not to notice. She twittered something about the glorious weather they were enjoying and walked in ahead of him in a poor effort to protect him from the blatant sunshine. In the middle of the floor, a shiny grand piano sat like a large black carrion crow.

Stannard's eyes followed the line of ornate coving and came to rest on it. “Do you play?”

She grimaced. “It belonged to my ex.”

“Would you be prepared to sell it to me?”

His eyes were an extraordinary colour, she thought, pale brown, almost orange like a tiger's. At that moment they were full of guile.

She smiled graciously. “That depends.”

He nodded. They had a deal. She rippled with excitement. While things were going unexpectedly well, she took Stannard back along the corridor. Square and dark, with York flags and dado rail, the dining room had an air of unrealised grandeur. There was no dining table and the walls were painted a flat deadly green.

“Not my idea,” she explained. “With a little imagination, it wouldn't be difficult to return it to its former glory.” He agreed.

At her suggestion they walked up the long sweeping staircase, Stannard on her left, his good aspect giving every impression that he had once been a
fine-looking
man. They were so close she could smell his seductive aftershave. Vaguely unsettled, she thought it best to show him the mushroom room first and get it out of the way. She started to rattle an explanation but he cut across her.

“Once the roof's fixed it won't be a problem. The details suggest you have a cellar.”

She assured him she did. “You can access it from both the hall and the garden.”

The tour of the bedrooms and bathrooms took longer than anticipated. Stannard admired the large main bedroom with dressing room and en suite, and its views over the lawns.

“I'd like to have another walk around the house on my own before we venture into the garden. Is that all right?”

Eager to please, she smiled approval. “I'll make coffee.”

Ten minutes later, they were sitting in the drawing room. Stannard had put on a pair of sunglasses, making him look more normal, she thought.

“You have a lovely home, Mrs. Foley. Thank you for sharing it with me.” Charming manners, she glowed. “It must be quite a wrench to leave.”

“One has to move on.”

He raised the cup to his mouth. She averted her gaze. There was a brief embarrassed silence, punctuated by the clatter of fine china.

When he finally spoke, his voice assumed a hawkish tone. “You realise that neither of us are going to be happy with the deal.”

She gave him a sharp look. He turned the good side of his face towards her and attempted a smile. “We are both
grown-ups
. What I mean is that when I buy a property I want to pay the lowest price I can, and you, as the vendor, want the highest you can get. Somehow we have to meet in the middle so neither of us comes away disappointed.”

“Or feeling
short-changed
,” she added.

“I find the opening up of honest dialogue to be key to successful negotiation,” he continued. “If there's something you're not happy with when we come to crossing i's and dotting t's, you must let me know. I'll do the same.”

“I can't argue with that.” She found herself nodding, mesmerised by the prospect of a deal. This was it, the moment she'd be waiting for. A
face-lift
was within grasp. Her life would be changed. The future suddenly trilled with giddy promise. “
Top-up
?” she beamed.

Afterwards they went out into the garden and followed the paved path that led from the front door right around the enclosed walled patio to the small stream and bridge. Overgrown, the basic form of the original flowerbeds remained. Stannard traced the line of the boundary and Heather directed him down three steps from the terrace to a white wooden garden door that led to the cellar. They went inside. It was dark and smelt of earth. In spite of the maze of struts and supports, the area was large enough to turn into another room.

“We'd thought of turning it into a games space.”

Stannard nodded politely.

“Or maybe a wine cellar.”

Stannard said nothing.

Heather gave a nervy laugh. “You probably have your own ideas.”

He didn't comment.

Confounded by the silence, she twitched a smile, and made for the opposite side of the room, up the stone steps, out through the door and into the hall. Back in the main body of the house, she felt a dizzy sense of relief. Stannard emerged a minute later and followed her down the hall to the front door.

“Right,” Stannard said decisively. “I'll get my people to contact your people.” He stretched out his hand. She took it, felt the cool skin. When she thanked him she tried not to look too closely at his face.