Wicked Pleasures (123 page)

‘Hallo, Angie,’ said Georgina. ‘Are you all right? You’re very pale.’

‘Yes, I’m fine. Just a bit tired. Come on, Georgina, we must go.’

‘Martin,’ said Catriona, ‘aren’t you going to offer Angie a drink?’

‘No, honestly,’ said Angie. ‘I have to get back to Watersfoot, and it’s a long drive.’

Georgina put George into the back of the Bentley and got in beside Angie.

‘It’s nice to see you,’ she said politely, ‘but – why are you here?’

‘Your father rang me, asked me over. He – wanted to talk.’

‘He didn’t tell me he was going to ask you.’

‘Well – he was in a bit of a funny mood. I think he’s better now.’

‘Good. Angie, can I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’

‘It’s just that you seem to be able to talk to Daddy. And – well, if I wanted to leave Hartest, and – and go and live in London for a bit, with George, do you think he’d be all right?’

‘Would this be anything to do with Jake Joseph?’

‘Well – it might.’

‘I think your father would be absolutely fine,’ said Angie. ‘He’s not nearly as fragile as he makes out, you know.’

‘Angie – thank you very much. And I think it’s really nice about you and Max. Honestly.’

‘I’m glad somebody does,’ said Angie.

Alexander was standing on the steps when they got back. He was smiling. Georgina ran into the house with George, after kissing her briefly.

‘See you over Christmas.’

‘Thank you, Angie, so much,’ said Alexander. ‘I’ve phoned Watersfoot, spoken to the nanny. I said you were on your way.’

‘No Max yet?’

‘Apparently not.’

‘Oh well.’ The bastard. Still out drinking. Just the kind of husband she needed. ‘Thank you, Alexander. It’s been a – a nice evening. Call me any time you want to talk.’

‘I will.’ He returned the kiss, looked at her rather intently for a moment; then he suddenly took her in his arms, held her very close to him.

‘Now I want you to drive very carefully, Angie. You look tired.’

Alexander, 1980

‘I want you to drive very carefully, Virginia. You look tired.’

She did look terribly tired. Far too tired to drive all the way to Hartest and to deal with distraught children when she got there. He had really needed her to stay. To talk everything through, to decide what they were going to say and do. He hadn’t been quite sure what might happen after that, but he had thought there might have been several alternatives. In the event, however, he had had no choice. He had had to act rather quickly.

It was just as well, really. There was no room for fear, for indecision. Quickly, carefully, it had had to be done. While she was getting a few things from her luggage, to take down with her. The only danger had been that she might look down into the street. While he had the bonnet up. But he had only been checking the oil, he would have told her, and a loose lead he had noticed, when he had been looking at it the other day.

‘Don’t worry if that warning light comes on,’ he said to her, ‘it’s a fault in the wiring. I’ve booked it in for a service, on Friday. Terribly overdue. You really should take more care of your cars, Virginia.’

‘Yes, Alexander,’ she had said wearily.

He told her that he would be down the following day. To give the children his love, to tell them whatever she thought best. He gave her a kiss, held her closely for what seemed a long time; he was afraid that he might give himself away, weaken. She looked up at him, half surprised. Then he forced himself to smile, to let her go. It was the only thing to do. It really was.

He watched the Golf move slowly off down the street, waving to her, smiling. But its lights were blurred by his tears.

He went into the house to wait.

The only real danger was that the brakes would fail too soon.

Angie, December 1987

Angie put her foot down the minute she had turned in the forecourt and was in the Great Drive. She felt oddly wretched, slightly sick again. Alexander was clearly more disturbed than she had thought. He certainly seemed to have some trouble confronting reality. The whole encounter had been difficult, frightening even. She didn’t quite know what she should do.

Talk to someone. To Max perhaps. To Charlotte. Charlotte was so sane and sensible. But what should she tell them? That their father was – what? Mad? But he wasn’t. He was very confused, very intense – but not actually mad. Certainly he was harmless. But it did seem to her he needed help.

Angie shivered suddenly and turned up the heating in the BMW, switched on the radio. She felt herself to have been in the heart of some horror, and she wanted to escape, to get away. Well, she was going home. Home to Watersfoot, to the children; home to Max. The weather had deteriorated. It was icy, and it was slightly foggy too. She decided to call, to tell him again that she was on her way. It would make her feel safer, less beleaguered. She stopped the car, just at the top of the Great Drive, as it turned away into the woods, and picked up the phone; shit, it seemed dead. She shook it, stabbed at the buttons; nothing happened. Oh, God. Now if she ran out of petrol, she was really in trouble. She debated going back to the house and rejected it. It really wasn’t worth it.

She moved off again, glanced at the gauge: it was pretty far down. Baby had often told her to carry a spare can. She had always told Baby there were always men around with spare cans. Not tonight there weren’t. Now there was a warning light on; flickering, settling into intensity. What was that? The fuel warning system, presumably. She really ought to take a little more interest in her cars.

Well, she should be OK. She had driven a long way in her time, with fuel gauges jammed on empty. Not so much these days, but when she had been young, and hadn’t had any money. She was always driving around on a wing and a prayer then. She’d only run out once, and that had been on the Pacific Coast Highway, and she’d been wearing cut-off denims, and she’d had plenty of gas in the tank in no time. This was different, though. This was Wiltshire, and it was foggy and she wasn’t wearing cut-offs. She was – Christ, this car was going fast. Sixty-five. She hadn’t meant to put her foot down quite so hard. And a very windy downhill bit of road ahead. ‘Concentrate, Mrs Praeger,’ she said aloud. ‘Think what you’re doing.’

Alexander, December 1987

It was seeing her stop that did it; that broke the spell. Until then, it had been exactly the same, the sadness of the parting, the kiss, the admonition to drive carefully, and the tail lights blurring with his tears. And the knowledge that it had been necessary. Discovering she knew, that had made it doubly so. He really had had no idea. Obviously it had been that dreadful day, when he’d had the breakdown. She must have been there. He couldn’t remember, but it was the only explanation.

Of course she’d sworn not to tell. Well of course she would have done. He certainly didn’t believe her. He couldn’t. Couldn’t risk it. Especially after talking to her like that. It had been foolish, in a way, allowing himself to talk. But wonderful: such a release. No, he couldn’t possibly have done anything else. There had been no choice, just as there had not with Virginia. It was very very sad, because in a way he was fond of Angie. He always had to get fond of them. That was the trouble. That was the whole terrible, humiliating trouble. She was engaging. In spite of everything he found her engaging. That dreadful vulgar parcel she’d brought; very sweet, really.

He’d done much the same thing to the car as he had to Virginia’s. Not quite so undetectable, but still very clever. What he’d done to the Golf had been masterly. Injecting the brake fluid hose with water. So that when it heated, it had turned to gas. And then all the efforts of the brakes had gone into compressing the gas. Doubly effective as the car started going really fast on the motorway. Poor Virginia. She hadn’t had a chance.

It had been more difficult with the BMW. Pretty, flashy car that, like its owner. But he’d known what to do. He’d studied it, planned it very carefully for days, weeks. Practised with Georgina’s. Attached a flexible blade round each of the brake pipes from the chassis. And then every time the car turned a corner, it cut into the pipe and the fluid began to leak. There were so many corners, as you drove away from Hartest. It would be a miracle if she survived.

But then, seeing her stop, he suddenly remembered. His jacket: it was in the car. He’d gone out wearing it, and then it had been getting in the way, making it harder to work quickly; he’d taken it off and thrown it in the back. He would have remembered it, retrieved it, if it hadn’t all taken longer than he’d expected; one of the blades had been awkward, wouldn’t fit tightly enough, had threatened to snap, he’d had to get another. And seeing the lights of the Bentley coming back down the drive, he’d just slammed the door and run to the steps. He hadn’t panicked, of course; he never did. He stayed very very calm. He’d just been slightly rushed. That was all.

But he thought he probably should get the jacket. There was just a chance that someone might examine the car, ask questions, inquire as to why the jacket was there. Especially as it had a couple of small screwdrivers in the pocket.

Well, he could catch her up. Easily. The Bentley could outpace that car in the lanes easily; it held the road better, and besides he knew every twist and turn, which she would not.

He could just tell her he’d been checking her petrol gauge: that he’d been worried about it, and thrown the jacket in then. She had been quite worried about getting home; she wouldn’t stop to question him, to think. And after that – well. It wouldn’t matter. She’d be gone. Safely gone. Away from Max. Away from Hartest.

Alexander hesitated for just another moment. Then he ran down the steps and got into the Bentley.

Spring, 1988

ANGIE

She’d lost the baby. Through the long hours of that night, as she sat in Casualty with Tommy, and waited, while Max had been caught up in the dreadful grisly sadness of Alexander’s death and its practical consequences, she became slowly and relentlessly aware of a strong pulling ache in her back; then the sharp cramps began, then the bleeding. They tried to stop it, but it was hopeless; late the following afternoon, she miscarried.

She had cried, cried for hours, from shock as much as grief; Max had wept too, had stood at the foot of the bed looking at her, his face suddenly, sharply older, not touching her, just telling her he loved her, that it would make no difference, that there could be other babies.

They had both known it wasn’t true.

She and Tommy had talked for hours the night Alexander died. He had stayed with the car, while she and Max had gone to Marlborough, to the police. While they were at the hospital, he told her he had found certain evidence that her brakes had been tampered with, and that he had removed it. ‘And did you realize Alexander’s jacket was in your car?’

‘In my car? No, of course not.’

‘He must have left it there. Possibly why he was chasing you. I put it back in the Bentley.’

They agreed it was quite unnecessary that anybody should hear about it, that it would serve no useful purpose. Alexander had been terribly drunk, and his car had crashed, and that was the verdict that would no doubt be brought in. They talked for a long time; Angie, who had had the sensation of being still in a nightmare, had felt herself slowly awakening to calm and a degree of normality.

‘The guy was a psychopath,’ Tommy said casually, as he listened to her, as he heard the dreadful sad story of the marriage, as they untangled together the elaborate mesh of his plan to kill Angie, ‘and like all psychopaths, terribly clever. Every detail taken care of. You sent to collect Georgina, her car probably quite healthy in the garage. Mr and Mrs Tallow, Nanny, all away. We called, you know, and he told us you’d left.’

‘When?’

‘Oh – nineish.’

‘God. He told me that was his mother. I couldn’t think why you hadn’t phoned.’

‘Well anyway, we came to meet you. It was so foggy. Thinking you’d be nearly home. Then we phoned again, from the car, thinking we’d missed you, and Georgina said you were just talking to Alexander outside. It got a little worrying, after that. So we drove on. Your car phone wasn’t working.’

‘I know. He must have – fixed that too.’

Angie shuddered. She felt threatened still, deeply shocked. She was holding Tommy’s hand, as if it was a lifeline, her link with reality. Then she said, ‘But he wasn’t really a psychopath. Surely. He seemed nice, Tommy, a lot of the time, gentle and – and sad. I loved him, in a way, I really did.’

‘About as gentle and sad as a black mamba,’ said Tommy, ‘and most psychopaths are nice a lot of the time. What characterizes them is a complete lack of any sense of guilt.’

‘Tommy, just why did he want to kill me? What had I done? Was it because I knew about – about him?’

‘Possibly. There might have been some quite different reason. Maybe he didn’t like the idea of your marrying Max.’

‘But he seemed so – pleased.’

‘Darling, you’re so naïve. They’re very cunning, these guys. Terribly clever.’

‘Tommy – do you think he killed Virginia too? All those years ago?’

‘He might have done,’ said Tommy. ‘Quite possibly.’

‘Oh God. And then –’

She told him about Alexander’s conversation with Fred, about Virginia. ‘You’re right. He was clever. Horribly clever. And there was that strange business of Georgina’s baby too, being so ill. Could that have been him?’

‘Could have been. Although again, God knows why.’

Angie shuddered again.

‘I was lucky, wasn’t I?’

‘Very lucky.’ Tommy looked at her. ‘I really don’t think any good could come of anyone else knowing about all this, do you? We should keep very quiet about it, don’t you think?’

‘Well of course we should,’ said Angie. ‘Very very quiet.’ She sighed heavily. ‘Are you OK?’ said Tommy.

‘Yes, I’m OK. Tough stuff, we Wickses, you know.’

And then the pain had begun.