A Shock to the System (23 page)

He managed to slide out an American Express card. ‘This O.K.?'

‘That'll do nicely,' she replied with a smile, in parody of the advertising campaign. She wrote down the number of the card.

Ten minutes later, Graham Marshall was driving a pale blue Vauxhall Chevette round Hyde Park Corner. He went down Park Lane and left the car in the underground car park. Then he caught the Tube back from Marble Arch to Oxford Circus.

Stella had just returned to her office from lunch and was brushing her hair when Graham came in, holding a piece of paper.

‘Hi,' he said. ‘I've just done a slight amendment on that report. Like to show it to George. Is he in?'

‘Still in the bar, I think. He's in a bit of a state.'

‘Why's that?'

‘Lost his wallet.'

‘Oh no!'

‘He's just getting so confused at the moment. I asked if he could have left it at home, but he said no, because he must have used his season on the train this morning.'

‘Hmm. Slipped out of his pocket under the desk perhaps?'

‘I've had a good look around, can't see it.'

‘He really is falling apart.'

‘Yes, God knows what'll happen to him when he actually does retire. He'll just collapse.'

‘Afraid you may be right. One of the sort who'll be dead within a year.'

‘Hmm.' She indicated the paper. ‘Shall I take that?'

‘Don't bother. I'll put it on his desk for when he comes back.'

Inside the main office Graham looked around. The required image of executive efficiency didn't leave many nooks or crannies in the furnishings where objects could lie unseen. He contemplated the waste-paper basket, but it was empty and the idea that the wallet had dropped in by chance stretched the imagination too far. He could put it in a drawer, but that also raised questions.

Mustn't stay in there too long. To walk out to Stella holding the wallet, and saying he'd found it, linked him too closely to its disappearance.

Oh well, in George's current state he was more likely to blame himself than imagine outside action. Graham shoved the wallet down between the cushion and the side of his boss's chair.

Stella smiled as he came out.

‘See you tomorrow,' said Graham, and winked.

The meal had gone well. He hadn't overstretched his culinary abilities. Two large pieces of best fillet steak he could cope with. Grilled mushrooms he could cope with. Salads and cheesecake he had obtained from the local delicatessen.

The wine was a good bottle of Mouton Rothschild. Stella hadn't commented on the fact that Graham drank only about a glass of it. Either she hadn't noticed or she had put it down to a becoming awareness of responsibility in a man approaching a seduction. And she didn't know that he had touched no alcohol in the pub where they had gone before the meal. She had seen him return from the bar twice with what looked like two large gin and tonics, not knowing that his drinks were untainted by gin. It wasn't just that Graham wanted to keep his wits exceptionally sharp; he also had no wish to run the smallest risk of being breathalysed on this night of all nights.

Again, Stella had passed no comment on their going to the pub and on Graham's chattiness to the bar staff and casual acquaintances there, although such behaviour did not conform with the desire for secrecy in their relationship which he had stressed earlier in the week. Probably, the anomaly did not worry her. She expected him still to be in an unpredictable emotional state, and was simply relieved to see him in apparent good humour.

He had talked during the meal of Merrily. He had made it clear to Stella that the marriage had long since died, and explained to her what confusion the reality of his wife's death had unleashed in him. He felt shock and regret, of course, and yet these feelings could not swamp his knowledge that the marriage had not worked. Among all the other emotions, he felt a glimmer of hope, the possibility that, by a random act of fate, he had been given the chance to start his life again. The drift of this conversation, together with an adequate ration of soulful looks and hand-touchings, left no doubt about the way the evening was headed.

Graham knew he was taking a risk. To cultivate Stella so soon after Merrily's death could be interpreted, retrospectively, as a motive for his wife's murder. But the word ‘murder' had never arisen, except in Lilian's hysterical letter, and after his visit from Detective-Inspector Laker Graham felt complete confidence that the case was closed. Besides, once again he found he was getting a charge from the element of danger in what he was doing.

As Stella trapped the last crumb of cheesecake with her fork and popped it into her mouth, Graham rose from the table, saying. ‘Let's go into the sitting-room. I'll sort out some coffee.'

Stella stretched herself out on the sofa in an inviting way as Graham went across to the drinks cupboard. ‘Look, I got something specially for you. I know you like it.'

He held up a brand-new bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream.

‘Oh, you are an angel, Graham.'

He got out a glass and fumbled with the metal seal at the top of the bottle. ‘Damn. I don't know who designs these things. They're always impossible to open. I'll get a knife in the kitchen. Black or white coffee?'

In the kitchen the coffee-machine dripped intermittently, at the end of its cycle. On the wall hung a collage picture of a girl, made from coloured seeds. It was something Emma had brought from school. For Graham it was an odd reminder that there had once been children in the house. That morning Henry and Emma had come with Charmian and collected their belongings. It seemed like years ago.

He looked at his watch. Twenty-past ten. Pretty well on schedule. So long as everything else worked.

He still felt confident. He hummed tunelessly as he picked up the envelope from the work surface. He opened the bottle of Irish Cream without difficulty. Then he shook the powder from the envelope into the glass. Three tablets. He had been tempted to use more, but remembered the doctor's caution. Mustn't run the risk of accidents this end, he thought.

He poured the thick creamy liqueur into the glass and stirred the contents with a spoon. He'd experimented earlier in the week, and had not been able to detect any peculiarity in the taste of the solution.

He threw away the envelope and put two coffee cups on a tray. He took a whisky glass, poured in about half an inch of cold tea he had kept for the purpose, then added a little whisky on top to give the right smell.

He placed the whisky and the Bailey's Irish Cream bottles on the tray and returned to the sitting-room.

He waited till Stella was half-way through her liqueur before he kissed her. It was a strange sensation. The lips that his probed were different, more fleshy, moister than Merrily's, but that was not the source of the strangeness. It was the fact of kissing that seemed odd, like the fact of having had children, a distant memory from another life. His tongue did a little dutiful exploration, and his hand, guided by expectation rather than instinct, rose to circle a breast. His other arm moved behind Stella, securing her neck in the crook of its elbow.

From this position Graham could see his watch. Twenty to eleven. The timing was becoming more critical.

For everything to work, he needed to be away by midnight or very soon after.

Stella's hands were massaging his shoulders, then moved up to his neck and steadied his head for her tongue to demonstrate its own expertise. He had never felt much doubt about her response, and the event proved that confidence to be justified.

Graham felt nothing. His mind hovered above his body, mildly contemptuous of its antics. His penis hung flaccid and uninterested.

Stella drew back her face from his and looked at him. Her eyes were not dewy with romance, but shrewd. There was no deterrence in them, just the complaisance of a woman who knew the score and had given her consent.

It was Graham's cue to say something, but he felt uncertain of the appropriate phrasing.

Stella yawned. Good, good, he thought.

That gave him the impetus to speak. He selected a voice of humility, tentative, thick with adolescent misgiving.

‘Shall we finish our drinks and go upstairs?'

Stella gave a quick little nod, and drained her glass. She smacked her lips. ‘Tastes a bit funny.'

He brought his right hand swiftly down from her breast to her thigh, which diverted her thoughts sufficiently.

Then he took her hands and they rose. She pressed her body against him. He edged away to hide his lack of physical response. ‘Upstairs,' he murmured throatily.

On the landing, he indicated the bathroom. ‘Do you want to have a pee?'

‘No, not at the moment.'

‘Who knows when you'll next get the chance?' he said. It sounded provocative, promising unrelenting sexual activity, which was how it was meant to sound. The real motivation of the remark was more pragmatic. He didn't want the pressure of a full bladder to wake Stella up in the night.

She smiled. ‘O.K. You know best.'

As she disappeared into the bathroom she stifled another very satisfactory yawn.

Graham put on one bedside light, which gave a suitably muted glow. He looked at the clock radio on the shelf his side.

11:02. All right so far. The next hour was the tricky one.

He kicked off his shoes and lay down on top of the double duvet. He felt he should have been thinking about Merrily, but his wife's image was now too thin and insubstantial to stay in his mind.

Stella came into the room. The front of her dress was unbuttoned to the waist in a way that Graham recognised should be enticing. She stretched her arms back, jutting her breasts forward, and yawned hugely.

‘Oh, I feel so sleepy.'

‘Yawns are just a nervous reaction. Anticipation,' said Graham, holding out his arms towards her.

She grinned and slouched towards the bed. ‘Well, I wonder what you're after . . .' She affected a mock-innocent little girl's voice.

Graham felt a violent spasm of hatred. It was Merrily's way, the sort of line Merrily would have used. Suddenly he felt for this new woman all he had come to feel for his wife in the last years of her life. As Stella slumped on to the bed, he found himself on top of her, his hands reaching to encircle her neck.

‘Hey. Steady. Steady!'

With an effort of will he made his body relax.

The light of panic faded from Stella's eyes. ‘What are you doing, Graham?'

He smiled boyishly, suppressing the shock inside him. The force of that sudden hatred had frightened him. At that moment he had wanted to kill Stella, and he had no illusion about how easily he could have given in to the impulse.

‘Sorry,' he murmured, affecting a schoolboy voice. ‘Just the force of mad passion.'

Then, again before his lack of erection gave the lie to his words, he rolled off and lay beside her.

This impotence was worrying. Not from the psychological point of view – he didn't feel personally diminished by it. Sex was no longer important to him, and this knowledge gave him a sensation of refinement, of ascetic superiority over the rest of mankind. But his impotence was actually threatening his plans, and that was serious.

What he had had in mind for the evening had been to get to this point and then make love to Stella. The confusion of intercourse and its consequent sleepiness might make her less aware of her sudden drop into sleep. But if he couldn't do it . . .

Still, mustn't write off the possibility yet. Maybe, with a little more stimulation, something could be achieved. He leant over towards Stella and started to undo the remaining buttons of her dress. As he did so, he evolved his contingency plan if sex proved impossible.

‘Like Christmas,' he murmured. ‘Unwrapping the goodies.'

She smiled and reached up to the top button of his shirt. Swallowing a yawn, she asked, again in the baby voice, ‘And what has Santa brought for me?'

Not what you asked for, thought Graham, controlling the anger her affectation sparked in him.

Two people undressing each other as they lie side by side is not the most efficient way of removing clothes. It takes a long time. Which was exactly what Graham had planned. Minute by minute, Stella was yawning more, and her eyelids flickered with increasing frequency.

But eventually the two of them were just down to briefs and Stella's searching fingers made further concealment impossible. Graham rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed with his back to her, as though to hide his shame. Time for Plan B. ‘I'm sorry,' he announced brokenly. ‘It's too soon.'

‘Too soon?'

‘Too soon after Merrily. It's not that I don't want you. God knows,' he lied, ‘it's not that I don't want you. It's just . . .'

‘Don't worry about it.' He felt Stella's hand on his shoulder, pulling him round. Again he experienced a flash of fury, which he managed to extinguish. He turned towards her, framing his face into an expression of shame.

She was all motherly now, her arms threatening to smother him. ‘It's all right. It's only to be expected. Let's just have a cuddle. That'll make you feel better. It's just warmth you need, warmth and . . . comfort.'

The last word was interrupted by a jaw-stretching yawn. Graham complied and lay in her arms. Continuing Plan B, he maundered on for a while about how ashamed he felt, how awful, how debased, how abject.

‘Yes,' Stella murmured at intervals. ‘Yes . . . it's only to be expected. Yes . . . yes ... of course . . . you mustn't worry about it . . . yes . . .'

The intervals between the words grew longer, and then there were no more words. The rhythm of her breathing grew thick and heavy. Her mouth dropped open and a soft vibrating resonance began to sound with each breath.

Graham squinted round at the clock radio. 11:43. Good.

He waited unflinching for a few more minutes. As he did so, he looked at Stella's face thrust close to his. He saw each pore and imperfection, as under a microscope. He saw the dark hairs that sprouted at the corner of her mouth and from her nostrils. Onion smell from the salads breathed across his face. Stella's body twitched a few times as sleep took command.