Love Letters (28 page)

She had intended to keep her mission secret. Officially she was having a couple of days’ break in a pretty part of the world she’d previously visited in winter. She was planning to walk, to relax and enjoy herself.

How long she’d be able to keep this secret, she didn’t know. Before she’d even finished registering at the b. and b. she was being asked pertinent questions. ‘You were one of the girls who came to see Dermot at the festival, weren’t you?’

‘That’s right. With my friend Monica. We had such a lovely time I wanted to see the place in summer.’

‘You’ll have heard about Dermot? The paparazzi were on to him. For two days they were there. He hid in his house and wouldn’t come out.’

‘Poor man. He must have hated it.’

The woman, who Laura remembered was called Marion, clicked her teeth and shook her head. ‘Not sure about that. He’s stayed indoors ever since.’

‘What do you mean?’ Marion was obviously dying to tell Laura all about it, so she thought she might as well glean what information she could.

‘Well, he doesn’t go to the pub. He’s not seen at the shop, so God knows what he’s living on. No one’s seen hide nor hair of him for over a week.’

‘Oh.’ Laura considered. Would it be best to confide in her? It might make her mission easier, and, she had to be honest, it was unlikely she could do anything without the whole place knowing exactly what she was up to. ‘Could I confide in you?’

Marion said, ‘Come in to the kitchen. I’ll make a pot of tea, and you can tell all. I knew you were here for a reason the moment you made the booking.’

‘The thing is,’ said Laura, drinking tea so strong she could feel it attacking the enamel on her teeth, ‘I’ve been sent by his agent to check if he’s all right.’

‘He’s not all right. If he was all right he’d be behaving like a normal person, going to the pub, taking his car out, doing his messages.’

‘Well, I’m to check on him and report back.’ She didn’t add that she was supposed to show him the error of his ways, convince him that no one who loved him had betrayed his secret, and that he should definitely come and do the festival.

Marion regarded her seriously, and then handed her a plate of biscuits. She’d already eaten the sandwiches Marion had prepared, but eating seemed to calm her nerves and she took a pink wafer although she didn’t usually like them. ‘I don’t think you should do that.’

‘Do what?’ The wafer was very sweet and slightly offset the strength of the tea.

‘Go and check on him. No nice young woman should go near Dermot when he’s like this.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well! We don’t know! But what we do know’ – Marion lowered her voice although they were alone – ‘is that he has a case of whiskey in there with him.’

Laura lowered her voice too. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Because one was delivered the day after the paparazzi arrived. It’s my belief he’s on a bender and no nice woman should go within a mile of him.’

‘I think we’re both within a mile of him right now.’ Laura smiled, she hoped reassuringly. ‘I’m sure I’ll be all right. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.’

‘Normally, Dermot is charm itself, wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone a pretty young woman like yourself but . . .’ Marion paused for dramatic effect. ‘I know he likes his pint, but he doesn’t usually drink
that
much. It could send him wild. He has a reputation with women. You don’t look strong enough to fight him off.’

Laura giggled in spite of the trickiness of the situation. ‘I’m sure he’s not going to jump on me. He might shout a bit, but that’s all.’

‘It’s still not a fit place for you to visit on your own. Take one of the boys with you if you must go.’ She paused. ‘I must say folk have been worried. They’d be glad to know if he’s all right.’

‘So why hasn’t anyone looked before now? If he’s been holed up for over a week?’

‘Scared to. I tell you, he’s got a reputation.’

A horrible thought occurred to her. ‘He’s not armed, is he?’

‘Oh dear no. Anyway, if he is, he’ll be so drunk he won’t be able to shoot straight.’

‘I don’t think that’s very comforting!’

‘I’m not trying to be comforting, I’m trying to tell you not to go! But I’m also saying we’d all be glad to know how he is.’

‘So you’ll sacrifice a stranger to get the information you need?’ Laura was fairly sure she’d read a book where this was the theme.

Marion laughed. ‘Well, we know him too well to risk it. And besides, we have to live here. If he turns on you, you can fly back to England.’

‘Should I have a taxi with its engine running outside?’ Laura was laughing too now.

‘No, but I’ll get Murphy to keep his mule on stand-by.’

After more tea, laughter and for Laura a shower and a change of clothes, she set off up the road to Dermot’s house. She didn’t feel like laughing now. She remembered taking her GCSEs, her A levels, her driving test, and being summoned to the headmistress’s office for some unknown reason. None of those experiences had made her feel this shaky.

Chapter Fourteen

She knew the way, although the last time she had made the journey it had been in the other direction. The fact that the village was so small definitely helped. And the fact that on this visit, the taxi had driven past his house, pointing it out to her as the home of the local celebrity. She would have preferred the journey to be longer really, so she could put off the moment of truth, whatever that turned out to be, for a little while. Seemingly two seconds after she’d set off, she was at his gate.

Although she’d been warned it would do her no good, Laura started by knocking at the door and pressing the bell for quite a long time. Inevitably, recollections of what had so nearly happened the last time she had been in Dermot’s house came flooding back: the laughing, clinging, shuffling entry into his house, when she was very drunk and he not much better, when they hadn’t wanted to be separated for an instant. The memories were not helpful.

Would she ever feel that degree of passion again? When she did finally go to bed with a man for the first time, would she want it as much? Or would losing her virginity just seem like getting rid of something that had become a burden? She knew it was unrealistic but she couldn’t believe she would ever have that chemistry – at least for that one night – with anyone else. There was something about Dermot that made every nerve ending alert and tingling. How long would it take to find another, more suitable man who made her feel like that? She could end up a virgin at fifty!

These thoughts kept her occupied until she felt she’d tried conventional methods of entry long enough. It was time for the back-door approach.

The back door was, of course, locked. It hadn’t been, she remembered, when she’d sneaked out of it to run back to the b. and b. in the early hours. Now, knocking on it, pushing at it and even giving it a surly kick only indicated it was locked and bolted.

Now what? Maybe shouting. Maybe if he heard it was she, and not some journalist, he might let her in.

‘Hello! Dermot! It’s me! Laura!’ It was not easy for a normally quiet person to make such a noise, to yell her name to the world, but she did her best.

While the neighbourhood might have heard her calls, Dermot obviously hadn’t. She’d have to think of something else.

She walked round the house and at last spotted a slightly open window. It wasn’t in the best place for an inexperienced housebreaker, but it would have to do. It was the top half of a hopper-type window. Although the curtains were drawn, judging by the position she was fairly sure it opened on to the sitting room. If she could get up high enough and get her arm in, perhaps she might be able to open the bottom half of it with a stick or something. The irony of it all hit her; the last time she was at Dermot’s house, she was sneaking out of it. Here she was now doing her darnedest to sneak in.

She dragged the dustbin over to the window, thinking that she had an advantage over normal burglars. She didn’t mind getting caught; in fact, if the owner of the house was disturbed that would be a good thing. And if a passer-by spotted her, she could ask them for help, even if she came across as a rabid fan – or possibly a particularly blatant stalker.

The dustbin was a bit wobbly but she managed to wedge it steady with a couple of big stones she excavated from the edge of the flowerbed. Dermot had obviously not been much of a gardener even before he became a recluse so she didn’t think he’d notice or even care what she did.

There was a wooden garden chair and she dragged it over to add stability to the dustbin. Once she was sure it wouldn’t fall over, she stood on the chair, and then, gingerly, stepped on to the dustbin.

From there she could see the catch of the main part of the window but she couldn’t quite reach it, even when she leant right over. But a stick might do it.

It took her a lot of wiggling but eventually she got the handle to unlatch. A lot of scrabbling later she got it open enough to get the stick in the gap. The window opened.

She was almost disappointed that no one had seen her, she felt so proud of herself as she fought through the curtain, got her leg up over the sill and landed in the sitting room.

Once there, she listened, in case her housebreaking had disturbed Dermot. As there was no other sound in the house a sudden panic took hold of Laura. Supposing he was dead! Supposing she was about to find a rotting corpse!

Her thoughts were so confused that for a few moments she didn’t know if the thought of Dermot being dead was more terrible than the thought of finding his body. She broke into a sweat while she talked herself into a more reasonable frame of mind. Marion at the b. and b. hadn’t indicated that anyone was worried that he was dead, and they would be if his death were at all likely. They just hadn’t seen him since he’d been besieged by the press. She decided to hunt him out.

Although she knew, really, that he wouldn’t be downstairs, she thought she’d take a look around, to give her an idea of how he’d been living.

The kitchen told her pretty much everything. It was disgusting. It looked like a project for a reality-television programme involving boiler-suited professionals, swabs and mind-boggling quantities of bacteria. There were rows of empty baked-bean cans, their razor-edged lids piled up like a heap of discarded oyster-shells. Every mug, cup, plate, saucer and bowl filled the sink. The floor was piled with dirty saucepans. This was definitely more than a week’s worth of mess.

And it wasn’t only crockery he’d run out of. There was a pile of dirty clothes heaped up in front of the washing machine. She suspected there’d be more upstairs.

As she looked further she realised that the grime was fairly superficial. There wasn’t grease you could write your name in on the walls, it was just that he obviously hadn’t washed up for a long time. And judging by the spoons and forks sticking out of the nearer baked-bean tins, he hadn’t intended to do any. He was just eating the beans straight out of the can.

‘Yuk,’ she said aloud, and wondered if it was the first word heard in the house for ages.

As there were no more downstairs rooms Dermot could possibly be in, she bravely went upstairs.

She didn’t have to look far, even if she hadn’t been able to remember which his bedroom was. She could hear him snoring. Well, he wasn’t dead then, she thought, aware of her relief. Although the front part of her brain had dismissed this as a possibility, her subconscious hadn’t quite let it go. But now, unless the snoring was really thousands of flies swarming round a rotting corpse, she knew what she would find.

Once in the door of the bedroom she could also smell him. He was lying on his back with his mouth open, deeply asleep. He was wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else. His unshaven state would have meant he had a beard if it had had any shape, but it was just a vast amount of black hair. His teeth glinted white in among the fur although she was willing to bet he hadn’t brushed them for a long time. They made him look like some ferocious animal, a grizzly bear or some such.

She cleared her throat. She wanted him to wake up because she was fed up with feeling like a burglar. Once he knew she was there, she could explain herself. But he didn’t stir.

She’d been right about the dirty clothes. Socks, T-shirts, shirts, underpants and at least four pairs of trousers littered the floor. What had been going on? Did he usually have a cleaning lady who’d let him down, and he’d been incapable of shoving his own laundry into the machine?

Knowing she shouldn’t really, she bundled as much as she could of it together, piled it on to a shirt to make a bag and carried it downstairs. Maybe it was for the best that he hadn’t woken. She could get on better without him.

She switched on the radio, tied a couple of tea towels round her waist to save her jeans from getting soaked and set to work.

She should have gone to the shop for rubber gloves, she realised, but as that would involve a lot of questions when she got there, and finding the key before she went, she did without. She certainly couldn’t face having to clamber back in through the window again.