Murder... Now and Then (31 page)

He had learned very early on that quick sexual gratification was easily come by, like Jimmy's hamburgers. Like them, it satisfied the appetite without fuss. Junk sex. And it could be fun now and again, but only with a woman who was as ready and eager as he was, or half the enjoyment was lost. Zelda had thought that she was that eager, but she had been wrong. She needed time to relax, if she was to get anything out of it. And bringing that relaxation about was all part of the sheer fun.

‘There's no hurry,' he said, sitting up, pulling her up into his arms, holding her close to him, talking to her as they gently explored the nakedness that had made her suddenly self-conscious.

Good sex was, he reflected, a three-course meal. The starter should be light and delicious and sharpen your appetite for the main course; it was an integral part of the meal. It shouldn't be hurried, it shouldn't be skipped, and it shouldn't be snatched away from one diner because the other was ready to move on. To Max, an uninhibited partner was a prerequisite, and if that took time to achieve, it was time well and enjoyably spent. And it brought ample rewards.

‘Am I the first since Jimmy died?' Max was a believer in getting awkward subjects out into the open.

‘Of course you are!' she said. ‘ He's not been dead a year. I feel so guilty, Max.'

‘No,' he said soothingly, stroking her hair. ‘No. You mustn't. You have every right to live your life. You are a gorgeous woman, Zelda, and men are going to want you.'

She smiled. ‘ I'll bet you really do say that to all the girls,' she said.

‘I do. All women are gorgeous.'

‘Is that a compliment?'

‘No. It's a fact.'

She looked at him, shaking her head. ‘I can't believe I'm doing this,' she said. ‘ This is not how I intended spending the evening – if you could bottle it, you'd be a multi-millionaire, Max.'

He knew that. But if he didn't know what it was he did, he could hardly pass on his secret. ‘I like women,' he suggested.

She smiled. ‘So I've heard.'

‘Not just their anatomy,' he protested. ‘Though that is highly pleasurable.' His hands lightly caressed the anatomy that was currently giving him considerable pleasure. ‘But if you go into a pub full of men, they're talking about football. Or cars. Or share prices. Or politics. Go into a room full of women,' he said, ‘and do you know what they're talking about?'

‘No,' she said. ‘I've never been in a room full of women, thank God.'

‘People.'

‘Is that a dig at me?'

‘No! Women are more interested in people than they are in things. And that makes me more interested in women than men. Perhaps that's what does it.' He shrugged. ‘It's either that or my devastating looks, my witty and urbane conversation, and the twin-hulled racing yacht at Cannes.'

She smiled. ‘But don't you feel guilty about Valerie?' she asked.

‘There's no point in my feeling guilty,' he said. ‘I'm going to do it anyway, so I just enjoy the moment. If guilt is in order, I'll sort that out later.'

‘Why does someone like you marry?' she asked.

‘I'm no good at being alone. Besides, Valerie's gorgeous too.'

That was another thing that Charles couldn't understand, or believe. That Max found his wife every bit as pleasurable as any other woman. Valerie found Charles pretentious and boring; Charles, though he had never said so, found Valerie unglamorous and boring. Max enjoyed her cooking and her company and took considerable pleasure in her body; he was very aware of his luck in having found anyone who would put up with him, however grudgingly. But he had only ever fallen in love once, and it wasn't with Valerie; her accommodation of his failings had been under severe strain as a result. She knew that the situation to which she had grown accustomed had changed; she knew that Max had found something more than physical pleasure this time. And that was hurting her, which really did make him feel guilty. And now he'd agreed to see Catherine again, and he had to make a final break with her, once and for all.

So he concentrated on Zelda, who had relaxed enough by now to be doing her best to take his mind off Catherine, despite the guilt which she had no reason to feel.

‘People always feel guilty about physical pleasure,' he said. ‘And it's so silly. You get the worst of both worlds. You don't get to feel self-righteous, and you don't enjoy the very thing you want to enjoy.'

He made her laugh. Laughter was important; no one should take this Heaven-sent pastime so seriously that they couldn't laugh about it. And with the laughter, what was left of the tension left her, and his patience was liberally rewarded.

And this was the dessert he thought, as she laid her head drowsily on his chest, and he sneaked a practised look at his watch. He really didn't understand why all men didn't use this form of relaxation in preference to toxic substances which ruined your health or your pocket or both. It was free, it was natural, it was delightful. The foreplay was exciting, the act was exhilarating, the climax was intoxicating, the afterglow was enchanting. Women were a wonderful discovery that he had made in adolescence, and he had never looked back.

‘Speaking of politics,' she murmured. ‘Are you voting for Charles's chum?'

Max remembered vaguely a reference to politics being made during the preliminaries, and he smiled broadly. That was why they were delightful. One cigar must taste very much like another, one whisky very much like another. He couldn't disagree more with Kipling. He must have been of the junk-sex persuasion.

‘I'm not registered here,' he said. ‘I'm going back to Camberwell in the hope that my vote might still cancel out Charles's, in a roundabout way.'

‘Are you a socialist?' Her eyes were closed.

‘When it comes to putting crosses on ballot papers,' he said. ‘I'm not what you would call a crusader.'

She raised her head. ‘Is that the only reason you're going back to London?'

Was he that transparent? He shook his head, smiling. ‘Zelda – what have you been hearing about me?'

She sat up. ‘Charles ticks me off for gossiping,' she said. ‘But he's no slouch himself.' She looked at him. ‘You haven't really had an affair with a seventeen-year-old girl, have you?'

‘Catherine and I worked together,' he said.

‘Charles seemed to think—'

‘Charles is shocked because I find all women desirable,' he said. ‘Even seventeen-year-olds.'

‘But you didn't—'

‘No.'

‘Good,' she said, and bent her head to kiss him, ‘I wouldn't want to know you if you'd seduced her and abandoned her, like Sir Jasper. But don't forget you've got to be at that creditors' meeting all Thursday.'

‘I'm not forgetting. I'm going to London in the evening. But I'll report back to you before I go.' He accepted the kiss, and sighed deeply. ‘And now,' he said, with real regret, ‘you are a particularly gorgeous woman, Zelda Driver, and I hope you ‘ll let me come back again, but I have to go.'

She released him. He was home just before Valerie, as always. She wasn't speaking to him.

‘I'm sorry, but he's at a meeting in Barton all day today.'

Catherine had only now found a phone-box that worked; she had gone through the pile of change that she had brought with her waiting for that stupid woman to find Max, and now …

The pips went; the dialling tone purred in her ear, and she slammed the phone back on the rest, tears pricking the backs of her eyes. She took a moment to compose herself before she left the box.

There was a café across the road; she side-stepped the traffic, and went in, offering her last pound-note for the cup of tea she had ordered, asking for the change in tenpenny pieces. She still had a ten-pound note; she hadn't broken into it. But it cost too much to ring at this time of day. All her tens would be gone in no time. She would have to wait until the afternoon rates.

She sat at the formica-topped table on which there was a long cigarette burn, and sipped tea from a Perspex cup. All day, she had said. Did that mean he wasn't going to be in the office at all? She had better not ring until late afternoon, in that case. He might be back by then. She didn't know if she could wait that long, and she didn't want to leave the vicinity of the one phone-box that she knew was actually working. It had taken considerable courage to ring Max in the first place, and that was only when she had acknowledged to herself that there was no other explanation, and precious little time left to decide what to do.

The first month she hadn't thought anything of it – she had always had trouble, and missing a month was quite usual. The second, she knew it had to be, but she wouldn't admit it to herself. She hadn't been to the doctor; she hadn't done anything. She had still hoped that it might all be a mistake, that if she didn't get it confirmed then it wouldn't be the case.

But then came the third month, and absolute certainty. And she had to tell Max; she didn't know what else to do. It wasn't fair. It wasn't
fair
. She had finally rung him at work, but she couldn't tell him on the phone. She had asked him to come, and he had said that he would. Then followed the hours of rehearsing, of trying to guess at his reaction, which varied in her imagination from towering anger to a shrug of the shoulders. Nothing to do with him; it was her problem. Oh, but Max wasn't like that, he wasn't. He'd do something. She didn't know what, but he'd do something.

And only today had she realized that in her panic at what was happening, and her relief at simply hearing Max's voice, she hadn't told him that she had moved. She had to get hold of him, and he wasn't there. Maybe this woman would tell her where the meeting was – maybe she could ring him there. Maybe she could …

‘Are you all right love?' Belatedly, the man wiped her table with a cloth that had wiped many others, and seemed never to have been washed in between times.

‘Yes,' she said.

She made the long trek back to her digs; she couldn't camp out by the phone-box. She had had a temporary job, and had paid her landlady until the end of this week. Which was tomorrow. But the job had finished last week, and she had no money other than the precious ten-pound note until she got her next unemployment benefit payment. She was alone. She was pregnant. She needed Max more than she had ever needed him, and he didn't know where she lived.

She tried again in the afternoon. Early – she couldn't put it off until later, though she should have done. She had known he wouldn't be there. She tried later. This time the girl said that he had come back, but that he had left now, and the office was closing.

Catherine went miserably back to her digs. But she had his home address and phone number from when he'd sent out cards to his clients, in case they needed to get in touch with him. She knew she shouldn't ring him at home, but she was desperate now. She rang from her landlady's phone, because she had no more change, and told her she would pay her for the call tomorrow, when she paid her next month's rent. Max would give her some money, if only she could see him. The phone rang out Catherine held her breath.

‘Stansfield 5690.'

‘Mrs Scott?'

‘Speaking.'

‘Is Max there, please?'

‘No, I'm sorry,' she said briskly. ‘Can I give him a message?'

He might not be home yet. Catherine crossed her fingers. ‘ It's Catherine Barnes, Mrs Scott – I worked for Max in London.'

‘Oh, yes,' she said.

‘The thing is – I've been for an interview, and I gave them the reference Max gave me, but they want him to ring them.'

‘I see.'

‘The thing is,' she said again, ‘I'd like to speak to him first – could you ask him to ring me when he comes in?'

‘I think he's probably out for the evening,' she said. ‘ But I'll take your number. Hang on, I'll get a pen.'

Catherine listened in anguish to the noises off as Mrs Scott looked for a pen. She heard the doorbell ring, and prayed that it was Max. She heard her open the door, heard her say crossly that she had already had one of their lot round. Then she came back to the phone. ‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘ I'm busy.' And she hung up.

Catherine stared at the phone. Max had already left. He was on his way, and she couldn't get in touch with him. She didn't dare go back to the flat, not now. She didn't even know what time he would be there. She looked at the piece of paper that had become crumpled and sweaty in her hand as she had lied to Mrs Scott.

Ten pounds. It cost ten pounds to get the train from London to Stansfield. She knew; she'd checked over and over again, and that was why she had quite literally hung on to it so grimly.

She was ten pounds and an hour away from Stansfield, and Max would go back there eventually.

He was about four, at a guess. He was red in the face, tears coursing down his cheeks, mouth open as he bawled his unhappiness to the world. Bannister knew how he felt, though his own feelings of being ill done to had all but gone.

He had gone to the doctor. He had told him and his inspector that he had fallen down some steps; they had both accepted that. He had been admitted to hospital, where they had said that he should have seen them months ago, and that there was internal damage which was permanent The doctor advised him to seek less active employment but he felt all right now. By the time he had got back to work, the business about Raymond Arthur Wilkes was history; the Warwickshire police had taken it over. The inquest on Wilkes had in fact returned an open verdict, but popular opinion said he'd committed suicide, and there was no further investigation into his death. The new government said that the police were going to get a pay rise, and he had met a girl who didn't mind that he was a policeman. It had got serious; he was even thinking of asking her to marry him.