Killing Me Softly (5 page)

‘What's he doing here?'

‘He didn't say, but I've gathered from other sources that he has some idea of starting up a private inquiry agency. A bit iffy, I'd have thought. Especially if he's relying on police contacts. He doesn't make friends easily. A lot of people were wary of him when he was on the strength, and now ... Ben, what I don't like is that I've heard he's trying to recruit Alex Jones, and that she isn't averse to the idea.'

He raised an eyebrow.

Alex Jones was high on the list of people Abigail considered her special friends, a former police sergeant who'd left the Service and was presently working with her sister, Lois French, in her interior design business. After a shaky start, the indications were that she was beginning to enjoy it. The two women were pooling their resources and their skills, and not doing too badly, Abigail knew. A bit like Miller's Wife, in a way. When women really got their act together, they could be terrific. Abigail wondered just how serious Alex was about giving up this promising new career for the dubious advantages of joining Nick. They'd been seen together once or twice since September, apparently, but Alex hadn't said anything to Abigail. She was a little cagey about her personal life. Not too many confidences got passed on, and both women knew why: for the one very good and cogent reason that the man Alex lived with happened to be Abigail's senior officer, Superintendent Gil Mayo. Abigail thought wryly that if Alex really intended an association with Nick, she had problems in front of her.

‘What did he want?' Ben was asking.

‘There's something on his mind ... he's asked to see me tomorrow.' She broke off. A discussion of Nick's affairs, never mind how uneasy their encounter had made her, was hardly appropriate to the present moment. She was annoyed with herself for bringing the subject up at all. ‘Well, anyhow, don't let's spoil the evening.'

‘Let's not,' he agreed drily, his arm tightening round her.

He was toying with her hand, twisting the heavy gold gypsy ring, set with garnets, that he'd given her last birthday. The firelight flickered round the room, on the oak table she'd so patiently and lovingly restored, on the candles burning low over the remnants of their meal, on the spines of her books and the few pictures she'd collected, and was kind to the empty corners still to be filled. Buying, furnishing and restoring the once-derelict cottage, making its garden, took all the spare energy and resources she had. She'd made shift and she'd had great plans at first, but somehow there never seemed time enough, not to mention money.

He rearranged her legs more comfortably across his knees as he twisted round to face her. ‘Hope I'm not going to ruin the evening with what I've to say, either.'

‘That sounds ominous – but go on, don't keep me in suspense.' She stared fixedly into the fire, her heart beginning to beat hard. Don't ask me, she thought in a sudden panic, don't ask me for something I can't give.

‘I'm not sure how you'll take this, but –' He took hold of her chin and gently forced her to look at him. Wait for it, Abigail thought. ‘I've decided to chuck in my job.'

For the second time that night, she felt winded. She'd been so sure he was going to bring up the subject of marriage, which, up until now, had never been on the agenda for either of them. Until recently, she'd always imagined their particular situation suited him as well as it did her, but then she'd lately sensed a shifting in the atmosphere and had started to wonder uneasily if he'd begun to have second thoughts. Second thoughts right enough, but not in that way, it seemed. She'd misread the signs entirely. She felt
bouleversée.
‘Your job,' she repeated idiotically. ‘You've got another one?'

He didn't answer directly. After a moment, he said, ‘The trouble is, my book. It's not working.'

The first time Abigail had visited his flat, his initial attempt at writing a book, a political thriller based on his personal experiences as a correspondent in the Middle East, had been merely a pile of manuscript on his desk. Since then it had been published, and had been well reviewed. At the moment, he was trying to get over the difficult second-book hurdle by following up with one even better. But with a full-time job, there was no way it could be easy.

‘You're giving your job up to give yourself more time, is that it? My God, Ben! Tell me I've a bourgeois little soul, but that would frighten the life out of me.'

‘It's not time that's the problem. It isn't all that demanding, editing the
Advertiser,
not exactly a leading national, which is why I took it. It leaves me with time and energy enough to write in the evenings, but heck, I can't write about something I haven't been involved in. I need to be there, where it's happening.'

She knew now what he was going to say, and she was shutting it out, not wanting to take on board what it must mean.

‘For can't, read don't want, if I'm honest,' he went on, typically open. ‘But at the same time, I can't live on air. I need a job to support myself.'

‘Are you saying you can just walk straight back into your old one?'

‘Of course not. But there are openings – Middle East again, I hope. I'm leaving tomorrow for a few days in London to finalize things.'

It had been bound to happen, sometime. He was used to wider horizons than Lavenstock could offer. And it was the spark of excitement in his eyes at the prospect of being once again in the thick of world affairs, of living on the edge of danger, which made her see how restless he'd become. Something she should have seen, but hadn't, perhaps because she'd been too preoccupied with her own career. But that also had been an unspoken part of the bargain.

Right from the start it had been a no-strings relationship, and there could be no recriminations, no comebacks, no tears. She reminded herself that she
liked
living alone, being independent. He would keep on his flat, he was saying, for whenever he was home. He
would
be home, often, things would hardly be any different. After all, there'd been many times when they hadn't seen each other for a couple of weeks. On the other hand, weeks when they'd seen each other nearly every day ...

‘God dammit, I shall miss you, though.'

‘Me, too.' She felt bleak. She smiled.

‘Abigail? You do see, don't you?'

‘Oh, absolutely.' The last thing she wanted was for him to feel guilty on her account. And a quiet voice told her very clearly – and perhaps this was the hardest part to bear – that if the positions had been reversed, she would have done exactly the same. ‘It's a pity we've drunk all the wine, or we could have toasted to your success. Wait a minute, though, I have some brandy.'

They drank to his future, to hers, they talked and talked, and finally, when the logs had fallen into ash, he said, ‘Come to bed, flower.'

Barbie Nelson took off her thick spectacles and put them carefully on to her bedside table. Then she began slowly to undress, first her heavy, unbecoming trousers and sweaters, then her sleek silk underwear; she undid her hair and let it fall in thick, dark, luxuriant waves to her shoulders. When she was naked, she stood in front of her long mirror, dispassionately assessing her statuesque curves and the creamy, voluptuous skin, as far as that was possible without the benefit of her spectacles. Her reflection was blurred, so that she wasn't dissatisfied with what she saw. But maybe it wasn't altogether due to the absence of glasses: she'd been taught to accept herself for what she was, generous and beautiful. Smiling, she lifted the designer nightdress from where it lay ready across the bed and slid it over her head, smoothing the frothy lace sensuously over her full breasts, and the heavy pale-raspberry duchesse satin over her swelling hips and buttocks. She thought of Tim Wishart, tall, rangy, heartless. She closed her eyes with a great shudder.

Tim Wishart. Was it possible? For a moment, her certainty wavered, but it was for a moment only. Of course it was. Yes, yes, oh
yes!

The small house in Prospect Street had been rented out as furnished accommodation for several years, although it was far better furnished and more fully equipped than the usual run of such. Comfortable and functional, all that needed to work doing so. That was to be expected, its owner being what she was, Abigail supposed. Roz's reputation for efficiency had always intimidated her. Nor had Roz ever flashed her money about, not like her sister, though they both had plenty of it. ‘Nice,' she said.

Nick shrugged. ‘It serves its purpose.'

But the house, lying overshadowed by the new shopping precinct, was dark, for all its bright paint. Gloomy, in the tiny north-facing front room, had it not been for a table lamp lit against the dank, dismal morning and the flames of a simulated coal fire making it cosy – and rather too intimate. Abigail sat perched sideways on the edge of the settee. No point in giving out any wrong signals.

‘Suits me well enough, on a temporary basis,' Nick continued when he'd made and poured coffee. He was smoking again, good intentions gone with the wind, and not asking her whether she minded.

‘Rumour has it that you're thinking of settling back locally.'

‘Rumour's more or less right, then. But that's as far as I've got,' he admitted warily, ‘though I've been sounding out a few people.'

She'd heard that, too. Other people, apart from Alex Jones, that was. The Lavenstock police grapevine was nothing if not efficient, and it paid to keep tuned in. But she hadn't heard that anyone else was interested.

‘Is it a good idea?' She wasn't pleased at the prospect of having him back on her patch, as a private investigator, or in any other capacity.

‘I have my eye on some premises in Hurstfield.'

The next division, safe enough not to be a nuisance. That was better. ‘It's going to cost you.'

He looked evasive. ‘Sure, but I have an arrangement.'

Did that mean he'd succumbed? After all he'd said about refusing to touch a penny of his rich wife's money? She couldn't see how else he could have amassed enough capital, in so short a time. He didn't throw his money around, but he didn't count every penny, either. What he said next made her think her guess maybe hadn't been so far out.

‘I have to contact Roz.' His face darkened. ‘Which at the moment is proving damned difficult.'

‘Why's that?'

‘She seems to have disappeared – and I haven't a clue as to where.'

She drank some coffee, debating what to say. A woman with marital problems to sort out might well decide to drop out of circulation for a while. It was her privilege, and to a woman with means, like Roz Spalding, that wouldn't present any difficulty. ‘We-ell ...'

‘Oh, I know! You're going to say she's every right to go off, if she wants to, but it's not as simple as that.' He sat forward, hands between his knees. ‘I suppose I'd better put you in the picture. After you and I – after I got back together with Roz, we managed to rub along well enough. At least, as well as most married people,' he added with a spark of his old cynicism. ‘In the latter stages, just before Michael died, it was better. I began to think we might work things out permanently ... and then, afterwards, when it was all over, she suddenly claimed she needed to be on her own, to think, before we ... Well, anyway, the last tenants here had just left, so she came over and moved in for a short while. In the event, it was for four months. She messed around generally for a bit, took a temporary job.'

Teaching, that would be. Roz had, by all accounts, been a good teacher, it was what she'd trained for.

‘And then she
informed
me – a damned letter, not even a telephone call – that she was going away. She needed a different perspective, was how she put it. She mentioned Tuscany, said she'd be in touch.'

‘That's hardly disappearing.'

He ground his cigarette out in the ashtray, then sprang up and walked to the window, where he stood staring out with his hands shoved in his pockets, jangling his change. Always a restless man, Nick. His body blocked what little light there was, this dank morning, but it would be gloomy in this room, even in summer, when the sycamore that grew in the tiny front plot was heavy with leaf. She watched melancholy drops clinging to the lifeless branches until he came back to his seat.

‘There was something about that letter, something I couldn't put my finger on. I'd promised I wouldn't follow her here, but in the end I did. And didn't like what I found. She'd left the fridge full of food that was going off, for one thing. Anything more unlike Roz, I can't imagine.'

‘A sudden decision –'

‘There's something else,' he interrupted. ‘I found this by the front door.' From the floor near his chair he produced a black suede shoe, a pretty thing with crossed straps and a tiny buckle fastening. ‘Just one. What d'you make of that?'

‘Maybe she just dropped it in her rush to get away.'

‘No chance! When Roz goes away, she
packs
. Efficiently, no loose bits and pieces to scatter around. And as well as cleaning out the fridge and the garbage, she even turns off the water and the gas. None of which she'd done.'

‘Maybe she had a plane to catch.'

‘Too much in a rush to pick the phone up and let me know? What the hell could have been so important for her to rush away like that without letting me know? Leaving food to go bad, dropping shoes!'

His anger suddenly gave way to uncertainty as he looked at the shoe, still in his hand. His temper was volatile, but while the whirlwind raged, you were wise to keep your head well below the parapet. Was that what Roz was doing? Letting the dust settle? Abigail had every sympathy with her, whatever her reasons for going away were – and she could think of several, the most likely being another man. Presumably she wasn't immune from falling in love. Was it, then, a spur of the moment decision to go away with her lover – understandably omitting to inform Nick?