Past Praying For (32 page)

Moon
smoothed out the covering. ‘ “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death,” ’ he read out. ‘Poor creature.’

‘
Yes, poor creature,’ Vezey said grimly. ‘But thanks to that repellent apology for a human being back there, we’ve lost twenty-four hours. And as we know, nothing happened last night; if she hadn’t indulged her nasty little habit, we could have had Missy safely under lock and key by now, and I wouldn’t be worrying about the pricking of my thumbs.’

‘
Do you still feel you can’t take any action tonight?’ Vezey bit savagely at a rough edge on his thumbnail, then tapped it against his teeth in frustration.

‘
I suppose you have to accept that the arguments still apply. They’ll fingerprint this at once, of course, but as far as I can make out we haven’t taken other prints, apart from yours and your sister’s. And now the arachnoid Mrs Groak.’

Robert
said, with an optimism he did not feel, ‘It was probably the police presence that stopped her last night, you know, and tonight you can’t move in Stretton Noble without falling over one of your lads. It will probably be another quiet night and we’ll feel foolish in the morning.’

Rod
Vezey grunted what might have passed for agreement, but Robert did not think he had convinced him and the knot of tension in his own stomach was becoming a definite pain.

***

Above the bar in the Golf Club house, the clock was showing five minutes past one. The barman, with his clearing up finished and all the glasses washed, polished and put away, was yawning as he leaned against the bar counter.

The
room was deserted, apart from the four men at the table in the far corner, still at their bridge game.

There
was money on the table, most of it in front of James Ferrars and his partner. This was not by design; James had been trying hard to lose for more than an hour now, but with the usual perversity of fortune had been dealt nothing but winning cards.

He
had tried to bring the evening to a close earlier, but Piers – whose idea it had been to have some money on the rubber ‘to give it a bit of interest’ – had snarled, ‘You’re going nowhere till we’ve had a chance to win it back. Typical lawyer – grab the money and run.’

Colouring,
James had sat down again, with a bad grace, for another interminable hour while the other pair’s losses only mounted. The sums involved were trivial enough, but Piers hated to be the loser in any game. He had been drinking steadily, though there were no obvious signs that he was drunk, apart from the mottled red of his complexion and his dull and bloodshot eyes.

At
last Newton, the Club secretary, appeared, and after a word with the weary barman came over to them. He was a stout, fussy little man who had been a captain in the Pay Corps and insisted on retaining the title. He thought in clichés and was much given to the sort of heavy-handed jocosity which was intended to be ingratiating.

‘ ’
Ello,’ello,’ello, what’s all this?’ he declaimed as he reached the table. ‘Still at it, are you? I’m afraid I’m going to have to call time, gentlemen, please. Have none of you lot got homes to go to?’

It
was an ill-judged pleasantry. Piers’s lip curled and he swung round belligerently in his seat, but before he could say anything James was on his feet and standing between the two men.

‘
I was just on the point of throwing in my hand anyway. Getting far too old for late-night card sessions, I’m afraid. What about the rest of you?’

The
other two men, trapped like himself by Piers’s determination, agreed with alacrity and also rose. Piers alone remained seated, glaring resentfully at them all.

The
money still lay on the table, at the places where James and his partner had been sitting. Piers looked at it, then at them, and sneered.

‘
Come on, James, you two had better trouser your ill-gotten gains. Next time remind me to choose my partner a bit more carefully.’

The
fourth man, with a vindictive look at Piers, muttered a surly good-night and departed. James picked up his share – some fifteen pounds – and turned to the secretary.

‘
Put that in the staff box, will you please? We’ve kept you all far too late tonight,’ he said, and his partner, as he had done all evening with such inconvenient success, followed his lead.

With
little alternative, Piers at last got up, lurching slightly as he pushed his chair back from the table.

‘
I can’t think why I bother with you lot,’ he said contemptuously, and made his way through the glass doors to the foyer, allowing them to swing to with a crash behind him.

Captain
Newton looked after him. ‘Oh dear,’ he said worriedly. ‘He’s more than a touch the worse for wear, isn’t he? I really don’t think he should be let loose behind the wheel.’

‘
I’m sure he shouldn’t,’ James said sombrely. ‘I’ll go after him, and try to persuade him to let me give him a lift.’

But
by the time he and his bridge partner reached the carpark, Piers’s car was gone. There was not even a glimpse of his tail-lights in the fog; he must have moved with considerable speed for someone in his condition.

Newton
had followed them out. ‘Should I phone the boys in blue, do you think? Not that I’m ever one to want to shop a member, but citizen’s duty, and all that – ’

‘
Yes, I certainly take your point. But he hasn’t far to go, you know, and he’ll be home before the police could track him down, in this fog. He’ll be crawling along anyway. Drunk or sober, Piers won’t want to damage his precious car.’

‘
You’re not wrong there,’ Newton agreed with a laugh, glad to feel that the responsibility had been shifted to other shoulders than his. He had to be careful about his licence, but it wouldn’t do to get a reputation for being a copper’s nark. ‘Good-night, both.’

James
followed the tail-lights of the other man at a cautious distance, and they inched off down the golf-course road. Captain Newton, yawning himself, went back inside with some relief to lock up for the night and get home at last.

Swearing
at the fog, at bridge partners and club secretaries, at life in general and one woman in particular, Piers edged his car safely home. He had drunk a great deal and his blood-alcohol level would have been off the scale, but habituated to it as he was, it did not incapacitate him and he drove the car into the garage and locked up without noticeable difficulty.

When
he came in, the light on the stairs was on as usual – Milla was afraid of the dark and slept with her door open – but that was the only one burning in the quiet house. He did not notice the soft rustles and sighings of his family in bed upstairs, though crossing the hall he heard one of the children coughing in its sleep. Milla, probably; she had kept Lizzie up half the night last night. Or so she said; he had slept through it, himself.

He
wasn’t ready for bed yet. He’d have played on at the club for another hour, from choice, if those stupid sods hadn’t wimped out. He decided to have a nightcap before turning in, and went into the games room.

This
was his favourite room. He was proud of the furniture and paintings in the drawing room – he had paid enough for them, God knew – but this was where he felt most comfortable. It was a real man’s room, with card table, billiard table, drinks cupboard and a couple of leather wing chairs. He had a small TV there too; he settled himself in the chair opposite with another large Scotch, and searched for the sports channel. He found it; baseball, they were showing, for some unfathomable reason. He zapped it in disgust.

He
was being forced back on his own thoughts, thoughts he had been attempting to escape all evening. They gave him no satisfaction. He wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t realize that he would have been wiser not to tell the woman to her face that she was nothing but a common whore. But how else would you describe someone trying to blackmail you on the basis of favours received? It had wounded his pride, above all; he had been gullible, and now he felt a fool.

He
was also very ill at ease. Hayley Cutler was bright enough and hard enough and vicious enough to make sure he paid for that remark, and he found himself speculating uneasily on what form her vengeance might take. He should never have started this; he had known he was playing with fire, but the intoxicating notion that this glamorous woman fancied him – him! – had turned his head. And that was what had flicked him on the raw; whenever he had spelled out that a permanent relationship wasn’t on offer, it had become clear that, after all, it had only been about money.

And
when you got right down to it, how many relationships did he have that didn’t come down to money in the end? How many drinking cronies would he have, if he didn’t pick up the tab? How many friends, if he didn’t pay for the parties?

Even
his wife. She’d never been much interested in the money as such, but did she stay with him only because she was afraid of what his money could do?

He
leaned back in his leather wing-chair, swirling the Scotch morosely in the heavy crystal glass, brooding. Perhaps he fell into a light doze. Certainly, he did not hear the door, which he had left ajar, edge cautiously and silently open.

13

It had been oddly easy to break out tonight. Missy wasn’t in the habit of considering Dumbo’s frame of mind, but she couldn’t escape the feeling that her heart hadn’t been in the struggle. It seemed almost as if Dumbo actually wanted her to win, to take over. As if Dumbo didn’t want her life any more.

Well,
no wonder, considering the mess she had just made of it. Missy giggled as she thought about how badly Dumbo had handled the whole business, then smothered the sound with her hand clamped across her mouth like a child. She surely couldn’t afford to be discovered now.

Because
it had come at last, the moment for the grand finale. There had been a mistake last time – she frowned at the thought that the witch had escaped – but that didn’t matter any more. There would be no mistake tonight.

When
it all started, whenever that was – she somehow couldn’t quite remember – she had felt like a little girl, frightened and helpless in a world where no one cared.

But
it wasn’t like that any more. She had got her revenge on that hostile world; she, Missy, had everyone terrified and bewildered, and had summoned up all these policemen who were chasing their tails like clumsy puppies as they tried to find her, making themselves look ridiculous because she wasn’t there, was she? She had proved to herself, and to everyone else, that she wasn’t helpless or vulnerable any more. They were. It was a wonderful sensation.

Missy
was strong now. She had felt herself grow stronger and stronger as the days passed, and Dumbo weakened. Once or twice she had nearly managed to break out when people were around, but so far Dumbo had won, fighting determinedly until her energy levels were low at night, and she was just too exhausted to fight any more. Though last night she hadn’t let Missy out at all, to her fury.

But
tonight – tonight it had been different. It gave Missy a funny feeling when she thought about tonight, about Dumbo just, somehow, switching herself off. It had felt like pushing hard against a door that wasn’t closed.

And
now there seemed to be nothing any more in the part of her where Dumbo had always been, and she wasn’t used to that; she wasn’t used to being inside herself, alone. It was as if – as if Dumbo had – died.

She
shuddered. That was silly talk. If Dumbo was gone, she should be pleased. After all, she’d been trying to break free of Dumbo for – how long? She didn’t do months and years – they weren’t a Missy thing – so she contented herself with the reflection that it had been a long, long time. Far too long. And now she had got what she wanted. Hadn’t she?

In
any case, she had far too much to do tonight to waste time with silly thoughts like these. She had big, serious, important things to do tonight. The other nights had only been a sort of rehearsal, learning her craft, as it were. Tonight was the night of liberation, when everything would be changed. Even if Dumbo did return and wanted her life back, she’d find that it was all different. Better – or better, anyway, for Missy. And if dumb Dumbo was too dumb to see it that way, well – tough. Bad luck. Hard cheese.

She
giggled again. She was standing in the kitchen with the blinds up and the lights off. The fog was swirling outside, and the only illumination was coming dimly from the carriage lamps on either side of the back door. In the eerie half-light she paused to consider her options.

There
was, alas, no more barbecue gel, and she had used all the firelighters. You might have thought that Dumbo would have noticed that they were finished and bought in some more, but she hadn’t even gone to the shops today. Missy was never quite sure how much Dumbo knew, or guessed; could she have worked out where the last lot went?