Beautiful Losers: A Novel of Suspense (17 page)

thirty-eight

That was it: a
few lines to say good-bye to four years.

The paper slipped from my fingers and onto the floor. My throat swelled and dry sobs scraped against the roof of my mouth. Can't be true, I gasped, my sense of denial compelling.

Not again.

I bent down, snatched up the note, reread it, studying the flourish of his handwritten signature, digesting every word, looking for hidden meanings, searching for hope when there was none to be had, hating myself for feeling this desperate. I wanted to howl but was too blindsided. I'd so wanted a letter as evidence that Stannard's mind games were taking their toll, a plea for space, perhaps, a desire for thinking time. Not a sorry and
good-bye
. Not an ending. Not like this.

In a bid to hold the wounded remains of myself together, I cursed his cowardice, swore at him for his weakness, criticised the note for being full of the stuff people trot out when they've made up their minds and already have a firm foot outside the door. Who was this bloody woman who had taken him? And how could I have been so stupid? With astringent clarity, I understood his sudden desire for sex, a weird form of apology, one last service he could do for me. Either that, or he was making a last territorial attempt to stamp his identity on my body, preprogrammed to ensure he, as the dumper, felt better about ending the relationship with me, the dumpee. Even the photograph was nothing more than a trophy, a badge of fucking honour. I felt like such a clown. The moods, the irritation, the dominating sex, the obsession with messages on his mobile, were nothing more than symptoms of his conflicted desires, his damned affair.

I rushed upstairs to our tiny bedroom. Symbolic of our ending, the bed was stripped bare. I threw open the specially designed wardrobe that had been built into the eaves, pulled out the drawers. What few clothes Chris possessed were gone—shoes, possessions, the lot.
The tiny en suite bathroom told the same story. Shaving accoutrements, toothbrush, aftershave, and
after-sun
all vanished. So it was true. I sat down hard on the floor, my spine digging into the wall, drew up my knees to my heaving chest, and buried my face in my hands. A wave of tears engulfed me, déjà vu in its entire vile and vivid colour.

I didn't know for how long I sat there on the cool bathroom floor yowling like a tethered, beaten animal. Grief slid into
self-pity
as I descended into meltdown. Memories clamoured like angry ghosts: the difficulties of growing up in a household where public displays of emotions were rare and tears disapproved of, the day I'd started a period at home and didn't know how to get rid of the soiled sanitary towels, the energy devoted to being the best I could despite my best never being good enough.

Much later, I forced myself to return downstairs and opened the doors to the terrace to clear the musty air. I read the letter once more, my lover's rejection like dirty rain on new sidewalk. Then, crushing it between my fingers, I took the envelope, sped outside, and threw both into the water.

Pressing a fist to my mouth, I watched the paper curl and sink. Concern for him, worry about the impact of Stannard upon his life and, all the time, Chris had been seeing, loving, having sex with another woman. Maybe even in
our
cottage. And, like a fool, I'd made it easy. I'd not been around to witness an increase in the number of showers he took, the greater attention paid to his appearance, the new clothes, old lies, those lengthy furtive phone conversations, all the hallmarks of infidelity. I felt a dull, compelling thud of jealousy but far greater was my intense sense of abandonment and the obliterating realisation that we fear most the things that have already happened to us.

I had only few strong memories of my mother. I remembered the smell of her scent, her enchanting smile, what I would now describe as her vivacity. There was nothing to suggest a heartless streak. That came later. I remembered her leaving only in the sense of feeling discarded. My father had taken care of my daily needs in a rough and ready fashion. I was stoutly ignored if I asked when Mummy was coming back, discussion of the subject firmly discouraged. All he would say was that she'd gone away. One day I overheard him speaking to my older brothers. They were now a triumvirate, he said portentously. It sounded grand and important except I found out later that it was a Roman phrase of office meaning three, not four. The move to boarding school only served to confirm my feelings of rejection. There were two girls in my year whose mothers were dead. I envied them. There was something dramatic and sad and noble about their loss. And it was final. How could I explain that my mother had left me, didn't want me, was alive but unavailable?

So I retreated into a different world, a world in which my mother was good and beautiful and loved me. Sometimes I thought she'd return. I wished it, willed it, prayed for it. But it never happened.

I was fifteen when, unknown to my father, I decided to hunt my mother down. Guy, then
twenty-two
, supplied the information and arranged a clandestine meeting at a café in Exeter. I travelled for nearly two hours on a stuffy bus to get there, my heart bursting with excitement and trepidation. The café, or more accurately a tearoom, was around the corner from the cathedral. White starched tablecloths graced the tables. Waitresses wearing bleached white aprons with black
high-collared
shirts, skirts and stockings and flat shoes served with unnerving civility. My mother sat in a corner near a window. She looked a great deal younger than my dad, pretty, maybe a little careworn. I felt thrown, not because she didn't square with the person of my dreams but because I saw how much I resembled her, similar eyes and nose. I didn't know it then, but afterwards I realised that when my father rebuked me, he was really rebuking her.

There was an embarrassed exchange in which we awkwardly hugged. Did I imagine that she clung to me for a fraction of time? Without much preamble, she remarked upon my face, offering condolences as if someone had died and, as if because of it, my life was forever blighted. I tried to ask the questions that had been dogging me for years, but she had a habit of deflecting them with platitudes and excuses while looking frequently out of the window. Perhaps she was nervous. Perhaps she felt guilty. I didn't know, but I knew she didn't really want to be there, that she couldn't wait to escape. In answer to the big question, the reason she left, she said:

“You're too young to understand, Kim. You'll probably never comprehend. Here,” she said, pressing a
ten-pound
note into my hand. “I have to leave. I have a train to catch. Good luck.”

I surged out of the café on a tidal wave of anger. It sustained and supported me, and gave me that brand of courage so highly spoken of and prized by others. Afterwards, I dedicated myself to a job requiring the compassion I'd missed out on.

Blinking away the memory, I remembered little of the next couple of hours. At some stage, I wandered across the drive to the garage. Neither of us parked our cars inside, but the Triumph was exactly where we last left it, like a strange parting gift. Perhaps it didn't fit into his new life with his new woman, I thought, half crazed.

Back in the cottage, I listened to my own increasingly desperate phone messages to Chris, moved stuff into the spare bedroom, and set up camp there in a weak attempt to embrace a single life again. Had I been at the Cheltenham flat, I'd have found it easier to kid myself. The cottage had once represented unity. Walk into any room, and I'd remember something he said. Sit in this chair or that and I'd recall a certain expression on his face. It was as if he'd died. Everywhere seemed inhabited by his ghost and the spooks that had fled before him.

Now I was really on my own, with nobody to hold or protect me, nobody who, in turn, I could love. My life had come full circle.

And Stannard was still out there.

On my third glass of wine, it occurred to me that Andy had known all along. I swore, feeling the acuity of double betrayal. I wondered how many others knew, or how long it would take for the drums to beat and the whole community to hear. With
big-busted
Jen on the scene, it would be all over the South Hams in moments. Claire had hinted at something in their last conversation. Had she been about to reveal all, but backed down? Could one of them be persuaded or coerced into telling me about the other woman? Did I really want to know, and what good would it do?

With tired resignation, I conceded that my friends were right, and I was wrong. Obviously, I had a tendency to form unsuitable relationships out of the shattered and grisly remains of
life-changing
events. Not only was I a hopeless chooser of men, which seemed odd given that I'd been brought up almost exclusively in their company, but I was also on a crusade for love, a quest that led me into all the wrong places. So what was stopping me from leaving this time? Why not give up the bolthole in Devon, sell the flat, and start over somewhere different … somewhere Kyle Stannard would never find me?

For the next hour, my overloaded mind grappled with what had happened. Some time later, clarity returned and I picked up the phone to Luke and got through to him half past four in the afternoon US time. I told him I was putting the cottage on the market, that I was perfectly fine, work was good, and that there was nothing wrong.

thirty-nine

Heather Foley didn't drink
at lunchtime but she needed something to stiffen her spirit. She'd heard from Damian Fairweather that morning. The longed-for offer had been made and it was a good wedge lower than expected. Forty thousand, to be precise. Stannard, she thought angrily, the ugly little freak.

Visions of being trapped in a home she couldn't afford, her life stuck in a hideous time warp, held no appeal. Until the house was sold there was no way out. The dismal truth was she was no good on her own. Without a partner, she felt as if she was living a half life. She didn't belong anywhere and it was killing her. And she was very, very angry at the world. Her friends thought her ludicrous. They simply didn't understand.

She poured herself another sherry. It wasn't right that Stannard had taken advantage of her situation. She'd no idea that he was buttering her up with his neat speech, his crooked expression of sincerity, in order to fleece her. Gentleman, indeed? Bastard, more like.

At the end of the day, to quote Fairweather's knackered old expression, she concluded that she had no realistic choice. An offer accepted was better than none at all, and it would only take a little of the money to provide the
longed-for
enhancement of her appearance. It would return the confidence she so badly lacked. It would facilitate an escape route. Anything would be possible afterwards. Before she lost her nerve, she phoned Fairweather and accepted.

“But there is to be no dispute following the survey.” No reduction in price for the leaky conservatory, the decrepit boiler, was what she meant.

“I understand the position, Mrs. Foley, but I have a duty to tell you that, if you accept Mr. Stannard's offer, you cannot show anyone else around the property.”

“Why not?”

“It isn't fair.”

Fair on whom, she wondered? “Until a place is sold, anything can happen. Are you telling me that someone else is interested?”

“We had an enquiry this morning but, unfortunately, the gentleman can't view until next week.”

“The more the merrier.” The tide was turning in her favour. “Book him in.”

“No
can-do
.”

“Excuse me?”

“Mrs. Foley,” Fairweather said, “we do a lot of business with Mr. Stannard. He's an extremely good client. You'd be well advised to accept his offer.”

“Oh,” was all that she could think to say. It was blatantly obvious that she was being steamrollered, but she didn't know what to do, or with whom to discuss it. “You really think it would be in my best interests?”

“You won't get a better offer in the current climate. If the house were in mint condition, then we'd be speaking a different language.”

“All right,” she said, defeated.

“Well done, I'll get on to Mr. Stannard right away.”

She could almost hear Fairweather clap his hands in delight.

forty

Mid-call, I'd caved in
and blurted out that Chris had left me. Luke advised me to do nothing. “Wait until the dust's settled. You're too upset to make an informed decision. It's what Dad would have said.”

I grunted agreement and went into Kingsbridge the following morning, spoke to two estate agents, then drove round and parked the car in Salcombe, visited another, and made appointments for a valuation with all three.

Ambling back past the
boat-builders
and on towards Whitestrand and the main street, I felt coldly vengeful. A thirst for retribution was common in my clientele, usually when they were on the mend. I always counselled against it. Unproductive, I'd say. False judgement. People usually do the best they can even if they let you down. In the majority of cases, most bad actions are mistaken, not malign. I tried hard to take my own advice and failed. I mused how easy it would be to pin the blame for the breakdown of my relationship with Chris on Stannard. Unfortunately, I was forced to accept that, had it not been for Stannard, Chris would have long since departed. I felt no gratitude. Stannard was the bogeyman, the embodiment of everything bad. All had been well until he parachuted and crashed landed into my life uninvited.

I called in at a café awash with
red-skinned
holidaymakers and crying children, and ordered a cold drink. Melting into the crowd, I watched out for an offset face, glad not to find one. Afterwards, I walked outside and parked my rear
on a castellated section of wall that overlooked the bay. I loved the sea and would miss it, but there were other seas to sail, other places to settle. Where exactly was anyone's guess. Blitzed by possibilities, I ruled nothing out and nothing in. Overnight, the cottage had ceased to be an intimate part of my history. It had never really belonged to me, in any case. It was, and always would be, my father's home. I was an impostor. Claire and Charlie and Andy, and all those people and faces I'd known and recognised since I was little would be dearly missed. To some, I'd promise to keep in touch, even visit, and yet I knew that, in
time-honoured
fashion, absence would extinguish every relationship apart from the closest.

Resolve hardened, I drove back up the steep, narrow road from Salcombe, through Kingsbridge and Frogmore, over the creek and wended my way towards Holset, finally making the steep descent to Goodshelter. Drawing near to the cottage, I scanned the gravel, looking for footprints or tyre marks, raking the surrounding countryside, but there was nobody and nothing to see.

Inside there were no signs of disturbance, simply the silence and emptiness. I showered and changed and wandered about the house hating the bleakness of my surroundings. A sudden memory of Luke crying darted through my brain. Haunted and half insane with grief, I fled.

Along the tidal road, the car's wheels splashing in the shallows, I took the higher route up the winding hill to the church where my father and brother were buried. The next six miles were a blur of disjointed thoughts: Chris with another woman. Chris when I kissed him
good-bye
. Smiling Chris on the beach. Chris recoiling from my touch.
Don't.

Every view, every building held a memory. I passed my old primary school in West Charleton, the cricket and rugby grounds in Kingsbridge where I'd cheered on the sidelines and watched the boys I fancied and who often didn't fancy me.

I remembered illicit beach parties and barbeques. The
odd-one
-out, I was the girl who didn't quite belong because I was not one of them, because my face, in every sense, didn't fit. Apart from Claire, the other local kids made it clear that I could never be part of their set, not with my posh accent and
snotty-nosed
alien expressions.

With a shiver, I passed the stretch of road where Guy had careened off on his motorbike and hit a tree, no other car involved. Not especially morbid, I hadn't thought like this in years and it rocked me. Well adjusted, psychologically stable—I'd had the assessments to prove it—I was a walking good news story and yet, abandoned for a second time, I saw how much it was a lie.

I was a classic textbook
screw-up
.

I was a fraud.

Stannard was in my hair, on my skin, in my blood, all conscious and unconscious thought manipulated by him. He was out to get me.

I had to get him first.