High-Wired (8 page)

Draping an arm each of Dunbar’s round their shoulders, and making quite an off-kilter sight with their difference in height, they assisted him back to the car, leaving the FME rubbing his shin and swearing under his breath about police brutality.

Dunbar was recovered a little by the time they returned to his home, and they found the female officer and Judith Filey sitting on the sofa in the living room with Mrs Dunbar, comforting her. As they entered, Mrs Dunbar shot to her feet.

‘I want to see him, too,’ she announced immediately. ‘It was him, wasn’t it, Clive, and not some dreadful mistake?’

‘It’s him, Mary love, but I’ve seen him and he’s at peace now.’

‘Then I can go, too?’ Her face was unnaturally eager in the circumstances, and, thought Hardy, her body language made imminent hysteria a distinct possibility.

‘Not today, love. Maybe tomorrow,’ replied her husband wearily. It was only early afternoon, but he felt as if the day had already lasted forever.

‘You promise? Promise me, Clive!’ shrieked Mrs Dunbar, confirming what Hardy had thought of her current mental state. Judith Filey interrupted at this point to say, ‘I’ve persuaded Mary that she and Clive ought to come to stay with me, just for a few days while things settle down.’ She had foreseen an intense press interest, and thought that it would be better if they weren’t available to anyone from the media that cared to call at their home.

‘I’ve got a different surname, so there’s no way the press could find me easily. And I think they could do with the company. I’ll phone their workplaces and sort everything out, and I’ll take a few days off myself. They’ll be in good hands, Inspector.’

Hardy heartily agreed with this suggestion. As they were preparing to leave for Judith’s, the uniformed constable offered to go with them, but the two women said it wasn’t necessary, although Hardy recommended it for a couple of hours at least, so that they could ask any further questions that occurred to them.

Once Hardy and Groves arrived back at the office, there was the usual stuff to deal with, things that Uniform could handle for now: shoplifting, aggressive begging, domestic fallouts. The events of the morning had done nothing to lift Groves’s spirits at the imminent arrival of her husband, soon to be back to the bosom – and a few other parts – of his wife, and she would do everything within her power to prolong her working day.

Having ascertained that the uniformed officers were dealing with the domestics, Groves took a break for lunch – a very late lunch as it happened – promising to interview those shoplifters arrested during the course of the morning when she came back. She took her full hour, eating in a small café that specialised in liver and bacon, enjoying one of their generous servings with the wry thought that the condemned woman ate a hearty lunch, before returning to the station to string out the interviews she would conduct that afternoon, spinning them out for as long as possible.

When every guest in their ‘special rooms’ had been dealt with, she went back to her desk to type up the notes, something that should have been delegated to a more junior officer, but which she attacked slowly and with the thought that her late arrival home would probably keep Kenneth off her back – or at least her front – until it was time for bed.

When DI Hardy packed up and shut down her computer, she called over to Lauren that she wouldn’t get any overtime for all this extra work as the budget was stretched tighter than an old film star’s face, but the sergeant just waved and carried on with her work. When she was finally alone in the office, she finished off her notes then made herself a good, hot, strong cup of coffee and pulled her e-reader out of her handbag.

It was only common sense to come to work prepared. Sometimes things took a lot of waiting for, and this was her secret weapon against boredom. Now, she used it to ward off the evil hour for as long as possible, when she would have to return home. Finally, she looked at her watch and decided she really ought to leave. It was eight o’clock, and by the time they’d eaten or, if the au pair from hell had already fed Kenneth, eaten something herself, it would be almost time to surrender to the inevitable.

Pushing her horn-rimmed glasses back up her nose, she grabbed her handbag and jacket, and walked very slowly down to the car park, her stomach churning with dread at the ordeal that she knew awaited her. Taking the long route home, she drove as slowly as she could, and finally opened the front door at half past eight, her hands actually shaking as she tried to get her key back out of the lock.

Kenneth came bounding out of the open-plan living space with a smile on his face, and wearing only a bathrobe and the mules he had adopted as slippers. He engulfed her in a bear hug, then kissed her with enthusiasm and rather a lot of tongue which, she found, turned her stomach. How long could she carry on with this charade?

‘Kenneth, I’m tired and hungry. Let me come in and get something to eat before you start pawing at me,’ she said in her bravest voice.

‘But I haven’t seen you in months,’ he protested.

‘Not now, Kenneth. I presume, from your friskiness, that you’ve had a nap since you got back.’

A sly smile pulled at the corners of his mouth as he agreed that he had indeed been to bed since he’d returned. At that point Gerda sidled out of the living room, similarly attired to Kenneth and with the satisfied expression of a cat that’s got the cream, the milk, and the chicken breasts.

‘Have you been in the bath?’ asked Lauren suspiciously.

‘I thought I’d have an early night but I came downstairs to keep Kenneth company until you got back from your precious job,’ she replied insolently.

‘We’ve already eaten,’ added Kenneth, suppressed triumph in his voice, and Lauren’s face turned stony as she stalked off into the kitchen to microwave herself something acceptably hot but, inevitably, bland.

She left the two of them in the living room watching what sounded like an American film with lots of car chases, shouting, and shooting. Kenneth called through to her asking if she’d like a glass of wine, but she declined; she simply wasn’t in the mood. After she had eaten, she took the back stairs up to the bedroom, taking her e-reader with her.

If she snuck off like this, it would delay Kenneth’s hour of retiring, and leave her in peace for just a little precious time longer, unmolested, and lost in the book she was currently reading. She could hear Kenneth’s heavy footsteps on the main stairs at ten o’clock, but continued to read, hoping he’d be too tired after his overnight flight, and had started to suffer from jetlag.

Her luck was out, however, and he looked as perky as ever when he entered the room. As he shed his bathrobe, revealing that he was wearing nothing underneath it, he got into bed, and she could smell the alcohol on his breath. He’d either drunk the whole bottle himself, or he’d shared it with Gerda. Yes, she decided, they probably had shared it, as there was still a twinkle in his eye that boded nothing good for her.

A few minutes later she lay on her back, as Kenneth pumped away at her body, grunting and groaning like an animal, totally absorbed in his own pleasures, while tears ran down the sides of her face as she endured this rutting ritual – because that was all it was – for the first time in months.

When he’d finished, he rolled off her, turning his back, and almost immediately started to snore. Lauren slipped from under the sheets, put on her dressing-gown and made for Gerda’s room to see if there was any truth in what she suspected about that little foreign bitch and Kenneth. She thought that Gerda had looked much too smug when she arrived home from work, and Kenneth would normally have wanted to have his selfish way with his wife at least twice on the day of his return. Maybe he’d already had a feed of his oats elsewhere before she got home.

As she approached the young woman’s room she heard a soft singing, and took this as the second bit of evidence she had uncovered; the first being the little smile that had hovered at the edges of Kenneth’s lips when they stood in the hall together. Without the courtesy of knocking, given the circumstances of her state of mind, she burst through the door like an avenging angel and asked her outright if she had been sleeping with her husband.

Gerda answered, at first, only with a smile, but her tongue was soon loosened when Lauren grabbed her by the lapels of her towelling robe and pulled her up from her seat on the dressing-table stool. ‘Tell me, you sly little bitch, are you sleeping with my husband?’ As she asked this she shook the younger woman backwards and forwards, her own face a murderous mask. Maybe she didn’t love Kenneth anymore, but he was still her husband, and it made her sick to think of the two of them in bed together under this roof.

‘How long has this been carrying on? Come on, tell me, you little slapper. Tell me, or so help me, I’ll swing for you.’ Letting go of her terry-towelling hand-holds, Lauren slapped the au pair soundly round the face, then stood back and waited for her to say something, suddenly aware that she was breathing as if she’d been running. She hadn’t realised how territorial she was.

To her total surprise, Gerda struck back at her, catching her on the right cheek. ‘You naïve little cow,’ spat Gerda. ‘This has been going on since the week after I arrived! We’re very discreet and have never let the children catch us in bed, but don’t be fooled, we’ve been at it like rabbits.’

Lauren stared at her in disbelief, then took a deep breath and launched herself at this picture of victory, grabbing her by the hair and dragging her down to the ground, where she began to kick at her with her bare feet. Gerda grabbed her by the ankle and brought her down too, managing to disentangle the painful handfuls of hair that her opponent held, and getting back to her feet, she fled from the room to where she knew Kenneth was.

Lauren had hit her face and split her lip in the fall, and was feeling decidedly woozy as she regained an upright position. This, then, was the end of her marriage, was it? She let her thoughts wander back to her previous time in bed with Kenneth that evening and shuddered. This wasn’t a minute too soon in coming, when she reflected on how she really felt about him. Gerda was welcome to him, but he wasn’t getting custody of her children, and he wasn’t getting off lightly financially, either. She’d take him for every penny he’d got, by God.

Mustering every ounce of courage she possessed, she shook her head to clear it, and also made off for the master suite, where she would pack a bag and leave for the rest of the night. It wasn’t too late, and she was sure that Olivia would put her up, even if it was just on the sofa.

When she arrived at, what until now, had been her bedroom, the two of them were in bed together, without an ounce of shame between them. She sucked at her split lip as she put together some clothes and toiletries, not forgetting her trusty e-reader, and growled, with all the venom she could muster, ‘You’ll pay for this, buddy,’ as she left the room.

INTERLUDE

It had taken longer than they had thought to dig such a deep hole in the sand, but there was no one about on such a cold night, and there was cloud cover, limiting the natural light. Finally it was done, and the trussed and gagged bundle, lying just behind a rock to shield any view of it from the promenade, was ready for its fate.

Had they been interrupted during their task they would have passed it off as digging for rare lugworms, but no one had passed since they had begun their task. They were at the end of the prom where the houses ended and gave way to municipal gardens – not somewhere to stroll after the hours of darkness, when the place was locked up anyway.

Taking a quick look round to see that they were not being watched, they dragged the man over the sand and held his head over the hole, shining a torch down it to show him how deep they had dug. Immediately he began to struggle and moan, imagining that he would be lowered in feet first and left to drown when the tide came in.

How wrong he was. To his utter surprise and horror, they dragged him to his feet, and lowered him in head first, the deepness of the hole dampening the groaned protests that escaped through his gagged mouth. Slowly the sand was replaced, filling first that part of the hole where his head was located. The world became darker and darker, until he found he couldn’t breathe, and he knew he was done for.

They had not even finished filling the hole when the purposely visible feet gave a final jerk, and then were still.

‘Another one bites the dust.’

That was the only comment, and the men tamped down their handiwork and walked off the beach, heading for the various places that they laid their heads for the night.

This one had not been so much fun, because they had had to stay around and listen to the man slowly suffocate. It would have been better if they could have arranged it with a different scenario; one where they could walk away and just leave their victim to die, and not have to be there as it happened.

Even the most evil of characters have their limits of tolerance, and can only stomach so much.

CHAPTER FIVE

Afterwards, Lauren could never recall that drive to Olivia’s house. Blinded with tears, she was also suffering from a deep shock that things could have come to a head so suddenly and catastrophically. She had envisaged a civilised talk about how she and Kenneth had drifted apart and how it would be better if he got himself a little flat, or even stayed in the granny annexe when he was in the UK, so that he could maintain his relationship with the children, such as it was.

This sudden acceleration of events, culminating in the shocking discovery that he had been sleeping with the evil au pair almost since she had started her employment with them, had been a completely out-of-the-blue revelation to her, and she felt mentally numb with disbelief. How could this have been going on under her nose? Would things have been different if she had been a stay-at-home mum who needed just the domestic assistance of a cleaner? How much of it was her fault?

When she finally knocked on Olivia’s door clutching her holdall, she became aware that she had not brushed her hair, that there were tears streaming down her face, her nose was running unchecked, and her lip was swollen and still bleeding from her tussle with the enemy. Whatever would the guv’nor say at her appearance, unannounced and in a state, at this time of night?