Beautiful Losers: A Novel of Suspense (15 page)

thirty-four

Peeking into shop windows,
looking out for Stannard's mirrored reflection. I took a less than obvious route to the flat. When a bloke shambled across the street and accidentally bumped me, unforgivably, I tore into him.

“For Chrissakes, watch where you're going.”

“Sorry, love,” he muttered in a
twenty-fags
-
a-day
voice.

Horrified that I felt so up for a confrontation, I moved off, my
fight-or
-flight response seemingly jammed on alert, attack first and ask questions later. Walking quickly, mindful of being ambushed, I threw myself into the flat. Shutting the door fast, I dragged the chain across.

Everything looked comfortingly normal. No sign of
break-in
. No notes. No calls. Relieved, I prepared dinner and lost myself in the rhythmic slicing and dicing of vegetables, the slow preparation of a smooth, creamy white wine sauce to which I added pink fleshy prawns and flakes of
honey-roast
salmon, the final touch a bowl of glossy green tagliatelle. I made a point of sitting at the small kitchen table with a solitary glass of claret, a novel propped open against a vase of tightly budded scented yellow roses. Against a background of classical music, a favourite piano piece by Debussy, I nibbled and drank and read, and created an immense sense of calm within. Only four days and four nights to go and I'd be in Devon to regroup and refresh among my closest friends. Then the doorbell rang.

My pulse jittered and gathered speed. The doorbell rang again, more insistently. I stood up and spoke into the entry phone. No answer. I crossed the floor and looked out the window. No one. Creeping up to the
spy-hole
, I peered onto the empty corridor. Drawing away, waiting a few moments, I did the same again. Nobody.

Stomach flooded with acid, appetite abandoned, I reached for the phone and called Chris. The messaging service clicked in. Assuming he was monitoring his calls, I asked him to pick up. He didn't. I called his mobile—switched off. I wondered what he might be doing and decided he'd probably gone for a drink with Andy, or perhaps was engrossed in a film, either at home or at the local cinema. Downhearted, I replaced the receiver and toyed with calling Luke in the States. He'd be at work and, knowing me so well, would pick up that something was bugging me. He was bound to have a view, something I didn't welcome. For all my
growing-up
years I'd been surrounded by older and, by inference, wiser siblings. It didn't matter if I was thirty or seventy, the dynamics would never change. I would always be the kid sister, not so bright, not quite cutting it. At least I'd elevated myself from being, as my dad once memorably told me, “no bloody good” to “not bad.” At a loss, I called Molly. Simon picked up. Two sentences later, he insisted on coming round. I backed off.

“It's all right. I only want a chat.” I hated being the centre point of drama.

“I'll be round in ten.”

Seven minutes later he was sitting on my sofa. Wearing shorts and vest and running shoes, Simon smelt strongly of sweat. His legs were brown, smooth, and hairless, at odds with his hunky build. His lashes looked unusually dark. It was like having a drag queen in my sitting room.

“Just got back from a jog when you called,” he explained.

I told Simon about the latest twist in what I feared was becoming a miserably boring saga, and braced for a lecture. Simon would surely urge me to go back to the police. To my surprise, he didn't. He asked about Chris.

“It's difficult—for both of us. It's put quite a strain on the relationship but I think, or I thought, we were over the worst. I don't want to load him with any more.”

“So he doesn't know about the card or the mystery visitor?”

I shrugged my shoulders. That wasn't all he didn't know. “Probably someone buzzing the wrong flat.” Now that Simon was with me, I had a clearer perspective. “I called Chris a few minutes ago but he wasn't in.”

Simon issued a straight look. “How often have you tried to contact him and got no answer?”

“I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.” I did, but I wasn't travelling down that rutted path with Simon.

Simon's expression didn't alter. His gaze didn't shift. “Have you been noting times and locations when you think you've been followed?”

“I can show you.” I sprang to my feet, glad of a chance to leave the room, and went into the bedroom and rummaged in a drawer. Phone directory, address book, useless leaflets with worthless information, oh yes, stalking diary, I thought irreverently. Retrieving the notebook, I handed it to Simon. Flicking through the mostly empty pages, he looked like someone calculating formulae—never a strong point with me. He put it down and gave me a hard look.

“How long have you known me?”

“Got to be ten years,” I replied, wary.

“We're good mates?” His expression was intense.

“I think so.” I attempted a smile. “And Molly, too,” I added hastily. Something made me look at the door. How long would it take to yank it open and flee outside?

“So you trust that whatever I say, whatever Molly and I think, I'm only telling you because you're our friend.”

I nodded vacantly. I didn't like the way this was shaping. He was going to say something horrible, I knew it. People got away with the most atrocious things when they used the friend line:
I don't mean to be nasty but, as a mate, your breath smells; because you're my friend, I thought you should know that your husband is in grave debt, is having an affair, is gay, enjoys the company of prostitutes, and/or hustlers.

“Stalkers rely on one thing to carry out their activities,” Simon pronounced.

“A victim,” I said merrily.

Simon remained
straight-faced
. “Time. It's like a job to them. They need to be either in
part-time
work or an occupation that allows them the freedom to move around.”

I stifled a sudden surge of anger. Why was it everyone but me seemed
eager to discount the obvious? I looked straight at Simon. “I've no doubt that Kyle Stannard is stalking me. From what you've said, he's also in a position to manage his time to suit his nasty purposes. The perfect candidate, in fact.”

Simon leaned towards me, his expression uncompromising. “If Stannard was that intent, he'd have tracked you to Devon.”

“What are you trying to say, Simon, that it isn't Stannard?” Heat fled across my cheeks. The scars on my neck felt scratchy. I wished that Simon would go away. Because if it wasn't Stannard then …

Simon continued, unchecked. “Maybe Stannard is harmless. Perhaps his intention to talk is born out of genuine interest.”

“Have you forgotten the way he followed me, his threats, the way he tried to scare me witless?”

“Did he? Are you absolutely certain?”

“Please don't tell me I'm imagining it.” My heart caught in my ribs. Was I having some kind of mental breakdown? Was I delusional? Was I gripped by paranoia? I gulped. Shouldn't I
know
?

“Of course I'm not, but sometimes things can get out of hand and be misinterpreted.”

Shame on me, but at that precise moment I wished Simon would drop dead.

“He's an ambitious man,” Simon said, “unhappy with taking no for an answer.”

I threw back my head and laughed. It sounded staccato. “The hallmark of the stalker.”

Undeterred, Simon said, “He's got a reputation to uphold. Stannard wouldn't be so stupid.”

“Stupidity doesn't figure. This is about obsession.”

Simon shook his head. “A significant number of stalkers know their victims. They're often
ex-partners
…”

“So we're back to Phil again,” I very nearly snapped with frustration.

“Hear me out, Kim. How well do you actually know Chris? You said yourself he's hardly ever at home.”

Did I? I tried to get a handle on the one or two specific times I'd called Chris and found that he was out. I tried to remember his timetable. He taught solidly every day. But then there had been that
two-day
visit to Huckham. No, silly, I thought. It didn't tie in, didn't make sense. Stannard was already in the mix by then.

“Does he have the key to your flat here in Cheltenham?”

“Yes.”

“The key to your car?”

“It's on his
key-ring
as a precaut—”

“There rests my case.”

I felt as if he'd hit me over the head with something heavy and then applied chloroform to my mouth and nose. Entertaining something in your mind was one thing; somebody else breathing life into the thought was quite another. Taken aback, I couldn't formulate
the words, couldn't speak. I thought of the weekend, Chris's mood, the heightened sex and new accord. I hadn't fully processed it. Part of me felt like a woman in jeopardy. The other …

“He doesn't seem committed to you,” Simon said more gently.

“For God's sake, we're not tied to each other at the hip. We both have careers.” And I was prepared to give up mine for Chris, but he wasn't so enthusiastic. There was that whole criminal thing loitering in his background. And he was acting strangely, his moods as unpredictable as riptides. I'd put it down to Stannard, but what if …

“You don't know him,” I said hotly.

Simon gave a deep sigh. “Too right. He rarely ventures out of Devon. In four years, we've met him three times. He never wants to see your friends and he hardly ever stays with you in Cheltenham even when he has his wonderfully long holidays. He's a loner. He's solitary. He's—”

“Stop,” I said, my voice unpleasantly shrill.

Simon didn't understand what living in Devon did to people. Seduced by the scenery and the illusion of the good life, people became extraordinarily insular. It took either ambition or boredom to effect a change. And it didn't matter whether you were born there or were chasing a dream. Once cuddled up under the large, fluffy,
sleep-inducing
duvet of Devon, it was easy to be deceived. People found it difficult to escape. But sometimes they had to. Sometimes the illusion was revealed. Sometimes they got scorched living there. But Chris, with his history of broken homes and foster care, could be forgiven for digging in.

“It doesn't make him my stalker,” I gasped, tears in my eyes.

thirty-five

How well do I
know Chris? Answer: Not very.

I edged myself into the day. I'd had one glass of wine the previous night but my mouth was dry and my eyes felt pickled, a clear case of psychology influencing physiology. I gobbled down a couple of painkillers and arranged for a guy to come and fit an alarm system at the flat, something I should have done sooner.

Next, I phoned Chris. No reply. I ordered myself not to jump to the wrong conclusion and, in an immensely calm and what I hoped was an unemotional voice, left a message for him to call.

Walking to work, I felt less contained. Consumed by questions, Simon's seed of doubt took root, bloomed, and spread like creeping ivy. Where was Chris? Why hadn't he called? Could he be my stalker? Could Stannard be a misfit with appalling timing?

With a tight throat, I checked in with Cathy, who treated me as if I were returning after a spell of compassionate leave, and gathered with a dozen other staff in the common room for a meeting to
touch base
, as Jim fashionably termed it. I couldn't help but study faces, picking out the men and combing suspiciously through their personal details as if they were case histories.

With Jim glancing a bit too often in my direction, I itched to get back to my room so that I could phone Chris's school. Waiting for what seemed an interminable amount of time, I finally broke free and spoke to one of the secretaries who confounded me with one sentence: “He's not in this week.”

“Are you sure?”

“That's what it says here.”

“Does it say why?”

“Personal reasons.”

Feeling like a betrayed wife, I explained who I was. “Do you know who took the call?”

A muffled discussion took place between two female voices. “Sorry. Would you like me to find out?”

“Please, and could you ask Andy Johnson to give me a ring when he's free?”

I waited and waited, saw the last of the girls on my list for the morning session and, under the guise of entering up notes, pretended to work. I sharpened a pencil, poured a cold drink, and spent a long time checking emails and Internet news.

Personal reasons
. So personal, it didn't include me? Was Chris having a breakdown? Blinded by my own problems, had I failed to spot the signs?

I went to the loo, looked at my face in the mirror, tipped my chin to the light, watching it play on my less than perfect skin. Faces held stories. Every line and groove, every fixed expression clues to the emotional history of the wearer. I thought of the girls I treated, some with faces wizened by
self-inflicted
progeria, those born with facial defects, victims of Cherubism, a rare condition resulting in bulging eyes and lengthened jaws, those who'd been disfigured through injury, or disease, or plain malice. Without warning, Stannard's weird, beautiful and crazy face loomed in front of my eyes.

“Fuck you,” I swore aloud and strode back to the office.

The phone rang as I tipped cheese into a risotto. Believing it was Chris I snatched it up.

“Kim.”

One word. My name.
Blood-freezing
.

“Why did you tell the police a pack of lies?”

My jaw dropped with indignation.

“In the absence of an answer or an apology, I propose we start over again.” No plea. An order.

God, he was good. Most blokes would have backed off, but not him. Stannard was coming on with a vengeance. I flashed with temper. “There's nothing to start. If you don't leave me alone, I'll go back to the police.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Is that a threat?”

“For a shrink you're remarkably quick to take offence.”

“You're stalking me.”

His response was cool and superior. “Do you actually know what it means?”

“Of course, I damn well …”

“According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, it means to steal up to game under cover. I don't consider you as prey and all my actions have been quite open. Incidentally, if I was really stalking you, you could get the cops to slap a restraining order on me, not that it's always a good move. I understand from some of the legal circles I move in that it can sometimes inflame a situation.”

Legal circles, I registered with a jolt. “You send me spooky cards. You take my car. You send a pornographic image to where I work. You hog my phone line. You pester me in person,
and it isn't what I think it is
?”

“Sounds like you have a
heavy-duty
problem.”

“I do: you.”

“You know perfectly well it's not me.” The tone was patronising.

“You're lying.”

“Bullshit. Incidentally, I've got a perfectly good car of my own.”

That much was true, according to Simon's information, but no way did it let Stannard off the hook. I would not allow this utter shit to beat me.

A telephone distance apart, he could be right outside the flat. I peeped out of the window. No sign of him. Screw the rules. Time to turn the tables.

“Do you have family?” I said.

“Do you?”

“I asked first.”

This seemed to amuse him. “Yes.”

“You're in regular contact with them?”

“I visit my mother often.”

Stalkers will often rope in family members to defend their cause.
“Where did you grow up?”

“Kent. What about you?”

“Never you mind. Are you on medication?”

He issued a laugh. “A moderate amount of wine each day helps me sleep.”

“You have a problem sleeping?”

“I'm an insomniac. I have bad dreams, day and night.”

“By day?” I silently cursed my failure to conceal my professional interest.

“I imagine I'm in the middle of a crowd. There are literally hundreds of people cheering, the cream of society. They're all beautiful, gorgeously dressed—McQueen, Marc Jacobs, Armani, Chanel.” His voice had taken on a strange intonation. “I can smell them.”

Smell
. One word and my alarm bells sounded. It hinted at an imaginary world more thrilling than reality, indicating that he was perpetually in mourning for the life he'd lost. My lungs felt seared with acid. I knew what he meant. I
knew
…

Stannard sliced and diced my thoughts. “Are you superstitious?”

“What?”

“Cracks in the pavement, touching wood, magpies? One for sorrow, two for joy. Best thing to do is run over the bastards.”

Christ, he was sprinting away with the conversation. I snatched it back. “Where did you go to school?”

“The local comprehensive.”

“That's not where, that's type.”

“Clever,” he purred. Maddeningly, I felt flattered. “I went to school in Kent. What you're really trying to find out is where I live.”

“Wellington Square.” I bit my lip.

“Well, well. Who's stalking whom?”

“I like to know where the enemy is coming from.”

“Tsk, Kim. I'm not your enemy.”

Snookered, I adopted a less combative approach. “Do you live with anyone?”

“Mind your own business. Your technique to extract information lacks finesse, if you don't mind my saying.”

I did mind. “Why don't you talk to her, or maybe it's a him?”

“Neat try. Points for that.” He issued a smug laugh.

“So?” I said, persistent.

“I'm straight and I live alone—like you.” His voice slipped into a low, seductive tone. “How do I make you do what I want?”

“You can't browbeat people.”

“Learned behaviour, darling. Sometimes it's the only way to get things done.”

“I'm not your darling and I don't respond to being railroaded.”

“Don't be haughty, Kim. It doesn't suit you.”

Exhausted, I fell silent. The quiet stretched for at least thirty seconds, maybe more.

“Hello?” he said. “Cat got your tongue?”

Temporarily refusing to engage, I said nothing. I needed to gather my mental resources.

“Are you still there?”

“I am.”

“Good. I'll pay twice the going rate.”

“Look, I understand your difficulties and I'm sorry but—”

“I only want to talk to you, for God's sake. Where's the harm?”

“Kyle, I can't.” Damn, should never have used his Christian name.

“What do you want me to do, beg?”

“I don't want you to do anything.” I was weary of him, of his games, of everything. “I simply want you to leave me alone.”

“Is that your final word?” He sounded as though he was giving me one last chance to change my mind and redeem myself.

“It is.”

Silence stretched out like an empty road in the desert.

“Secrets and guilt.” He articulated the words slowly.

“Pardon?”

“It's what you trade in. And I have to share mine with you.”

Have to
. “Why me?”

“Because you shimmer with sadness.”

The hairs on the back of my neck awoke from a long, faraway sleep and stood erect. “Like I said,” I repeated,
thick-tongued
, “my expertise is in an entirely different field.”

“Did you know that the only attributes a convincing liar needs are nerve and front? Swear to a story often enough, people swallow it.”

“I don't know what you mean.” I rubbed at my eyes. “I don't understand how this is relevant.”

“You could treat me, if you wanted to. You could help me.”

“I can't. I'm the wrong person.”

“You're exactly the right person. It's why you became a shrink, isn't it? The mind becomes so much more interesting when one's looks are compromised.”

“Fuck off.”

He let out a laugh. “I like that about you—no shit, straight to the point. It's quite a muscular trait, unusual in a woman.”

“That's—”

“Let me finish. It's rude to interrupt.” It had been some time since I'd been told to shut up.
Children should be seen and not heard.
It hurt as much now as it did then. “I haven't yet got past the point of feeling bitter,” Stannard continued. “Naturally, it's not as bad as it used to be, thank God. At least I can function. It's a kind of trick, isn't it?”

“That's
self-pitying
rubbish. I wouldn't know.”

“I think you do. I think you understand only too well. Were you burnt a long time ago, Kim? Was it a tragic accident?”

I slammed down the phone.

I was seven years old and bubbling with excitement because it was Guy Fawkes Night. For a month gales had whipped from the north, crossing sea and land, smearing it with a thick blanket of yellow sea fog, confining fishermen to port. Then the rain stopped, replaced by a bitter winter chill.

Stepping outside, the breath punched out of me. My tiny feet felt numb. Ears tingling, they turned itchy and were probably bright red. My gloveless hands were raw. Daddy forgot things like that. Jackets, too. I only started to clean my teeth and wash properly later on when I was sent away to school. My brothers teased me about it. They taunted me about lots of things—grace before meals, deportment, elocution lessons, the
la-di
-dah accent that replaced my slow drawl Devon roots, and what they called my new airs and graces. They viewed my going away to school as our dad's attempt to turn me into a little lady, and took every opportunity to rib me about it. I felt like a cuckoo, not quite fitting into either world. One alien environment with strict and incomprehensible rules, the other where there were no rules at all. And therein lay the tragedy.

My adolescent brothers had spent days hauling bits of dead tree and wood to build a bonfire. It stretched up to the sky as solid as a fortified castle.

We ransacked Daddy's wardrobe and found one of his old jackets. It was checked and
dung-coloured
and stained. Then we found an old pair of trousers and a funny Russian hat, lined with fur, that he'd bought long before I was born. Luke persuaded the gardener, who came in once a week, or maybe it was the girl groom, couldn't remember now, to sew the clothes together. I don't know why but I thought Daddy would get cross and threatened to tell. The boys didn't like that and accused me of being a
scaredy-cat
. When I screamed blue murder, they gave me sweets and crisps and pop to shut me up. Afterwards, they filled the guy with straw kept for the ponies and threw him up onto the waiting bonfire and waited for darkness to fall.

We all trooped outside. Daddy cooked hot dogs. We ate them with fried onions and gloopy ketchup. I drank loads more pop and my tummy hurt.

Daddy lit the bonfire first. I thought it would go off with a terrific whoosh but it didn't. It crackled and spat and went out. “Too much damp,” Daddy said. The boys suggested putting petrol on it and got well and truly told off. Daddy chucked on dry wood and lit it again, and this time the twigs crackled and spat. At last, tiny yellow flames flickered into life, creeping slowly, igniting branch and leaf, spreading a relentless flow of fire. I gazed mesmerised, feeling the power and heat, watching the light play in my brothers' eyes, seeing it ignite the blackened sky. I took a step forward and squealed as Daddy grabbed hold and dragged me back. He gave me a stern talking to, warning of the dangers of getting too close. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Guy smirk.

We started off with sparklers. I held one in each hand, circling them, making patterns. Daddy had made a firework trail and scurried across the grass, a taper in hand, lighting first one and then another. I didn't like the shouty Jumping Jacks and bangers and clamped my hands over my ears and screwed my eyes up tight. I liked pretty Roman candles and Catherine Wheels best. Holding Daddy's hand, watching the blaze of colour, I felt cosy inside. For once, I'd forgotten about my mummy.