This Way Out (21 page)

Derek felt numbed. How could this be happening, when they'd always been such a secure couple? When they'd been through so many trials together? When he loved Christine so much that he was prepared to do anything for her, even to the extent of –

Well, he wouldn't think about that. The death of Enid had nothing to do with what was happening between him and Christine. Understandably, she was rejecting him because she thought he had been unfaithful to her. But since he hadn't (hadn't ever been, wouldn't ever be), surely he ought to be able to convince her?

‘It isn't true, Chrissie,' he said urgently. ‘The family's got it all wrong. I love you, you know that. I've always been faithful to you. I've never so much as looked at another woman, and I never will.'

‘The children didn't say anything about it,' said Christine distantly, ‘though I'm sure they guessed. They didn't need to say anything. I worked it out for myself on Saturday evening.'

‘But I've just told you – it's not true! I swear to you I've done nothing wrong. Good God,' he burst out, ‘do you take me for a liar as well as a lecher!'

She gave a shrug of indifference. ‘It hardly seems to matter, now.'

‘Not
matter
? What do you mean? Don't you care whether or not I've been faithful to you?'

‘I would have cared very much', she said in a level voice, ‘if it had occurred to me earlier that you hadn't been. I cared for a time on Saturday evening. But now, quite frankly, it seems to be of very small importance.'

She stood up. ‘I need some space, Derek. It's not you that's the problem, it's me. I need to think things out on my own. Sylvia has kindly said that I can stay here until I'm fit to drive to Derbyshire – but no doubt you'll want to go elsewhere straight away.'

‘But how long are you going for?'

‘I don't know. I really don't know.'

Anguished, he stumbled to his feet. ‘I don't understand what's happening to us, Chrissie. We're not going to part company, not after everything we've been through together! We're a couple, we have been since we were teenagers. We're
us
, and I won't let you go.'

She began to walk away. ‘I'll send Trish's address to you at your office before I go,' she said. Then she paused and glanced back at him: ‘Don't forget that you're due at the doctor's surgery on Friday to have your stitches out.'

Derek looked dumbly down at his bandaged hand. It seemed to be of no importance at all.

At the Brickyard, the very young constable was taking a second look at Derek Cartwright's Sierra before the police moved out.

‘What do you make of this, Sergeant Lloyd?' he called to the detective as she crossed the yard to her own car.

Hilary joined him under the cart shed. As they examined the marks in the dried mud on the driver's door of the Sierra, PC Mills told her how Cartwright had explained the scratches away.

‘But I've been thinking about it,' he said, ‘and I'm not satisfied that he was telling the truth. Yes, all right, some of the paw prints are clear enough. No doubt they were made when the car was stationary. But look at the angle of these scratches –'

‘You're right, Shaun,' said the sergeant. ‘Some of them are more horizontal than vertical. And some of them trail away on the back door. It looks as though the car was moving when the dog tried to get in.'

Shaun Mills stood up, frowning. ‘I wouldn't have thought it of Mr Cartwright. He seems such a decent man, not at all the sort to get rid of a poor old dog by dumping it.'

‘I wouldn't have thought it of him either – but you can never tell, can you? If this was what he went to the forest for, then we were probably wrong about the secret love affair. But all I can say is,' concluded Hilary Lloyd crossly, ‘that if his family has been giving him a hard time over a non-existent affair, then it serves the wretched man right.'

Derek was so dazed by what had happened between Christine and himself that it was only when he emerged with a suitcase from the now-deserted Brickyard that he realized he had gone upstairs and done his packing without giving Enid's murder a thought. And now that it crossed his mind, he felt completely disassociated from it.

He sat in the Sierra and tried using the gear lever and handbrake with his bandaged hand. Driving to Cambridge was going to be difficult, but not impossible. What did it matter that his hand would hurt? His emotions had already taken a far worse battering.

He booked in at the same Cambridge hotel he had used on Friday night, then drove round the corner to his office. His colleagues were surprised to see him, because he had telephoned first thing that morning to say that his mother-in-law had suddenly died and he wouldn't be at work for the next few days. But they were sympathetic and incurious, accepting his explanation that there was nothing he could do at home and he was glad to get away for a bit from the old lady's friends and relations.

Fortunately the
East Anglian Daily Press
, which that morning carried a front-page account of the murder, didn't circulate as far as Cambridge. Derek expected that the news would reach his colleagues eventually, but he had no intention of telling them. Nor did he say anything about his move to the hotel, partly out of hurt pride and partly because he didn't want to become the subject of office gossip.

He had hoped that work would take his mind off his personal problems, but it didn't. Or, rather, it did every so often; but then the recollection that Christine had rejected him would come springing back, more painful than ever.

There was no point in continuing to sit in his office staring at his monitor after the rest of the staff had gone home. The trouble was that he didn't know what else to do. He thought about going to the health club, but he was in no fit state either to swim or to exercise.

For a time, oblivious of his surroundings, he walked the streets of Cambridge. He stopped at a pub for a drink and something to eat, but the bar was a noisy student haunt and he didn't feel inclined to linger. Abandoning a sinewy chicken drumstick, he bought a half bottle of Bell's and retreated to his hotel room.

The first whisky went straight down, almost unnoticed except for the shudder effect. Clutching the second, he sat on his bed and contemplated the telephone. He always rang Christine when he was away for a night, and he longed to talk to her now. He couldn't believe that everything wasn't all right between them, just as it always had been.

And perhaps it was. Perhaps he'd allowed a mere tiff to balloon to monstrous proportions in his mind. Christine was probably sitting in Sylvia Collins's house now, waiting anxiously for his call. After all, she'd thought to remind him about having the stitches out of his hand, so there was no doubt that she cared. Perhaps if he opened the conversation as though nothing had happened, the problem would go away.

He swallowed the second whisky, dialled Mrs Collins's number, and asked to speak to his wife.

It seemed to him that several minutes elapsed before Christine came to the telephone. There was a crackle on the line which made it difficult to judge her mood, but her formal ‘Hallo Derek'was not encouraging.

‘Hallo Chrissie! How are you, darling?'

‘I'm all right, thank you.'

‘Good!' He would never normally pronounce the word so heartily, but anxiety falsified his tone. ‘I had a lot of work to catch up with, or I'd have rung you earlier. I'm staying at the usual hotel near the office. Would you like to make a note of the telephone number, dearest?' He read it off to her. ‘Got that?'

‘Yes, thank you,' she said. The line had cleared, and he could tell from her voice that she hadn't bothered to write the number down.

‘Chrissie!'

Abandoning his casual act he gripped the receiver tightly, with his bandaged as well as his good hand, as though by doing so he could hold on to her. ‘You know I love you. You only, ever and always. Let me drive over now, tonight, and bring you back here. Or anywhere, as long as we're together.
Please
.'

‘Oh, Derek … Can't you understand?' There was a weary sadness in her voice. ‘I'm distressed and confused, and I need to be on my own to try to sort things out. Don't hassle me, please. Just – good-night.'

She cut him off. He sat quite still for a few minutes, staring at the receiver he was holding. Then he slammed it down, and grimly set about finishing the remainder of the bottle.

His secretary had already cancelled his appointments for the rest of the week; just as well, as far as the following day was concerned. Derek woke with a foul taste in his mouth, a sore hand and a pounding hangover. But those were the least of his troubles.

He made a cup of coffee in his room and stood with it at the window looking out at the Chesterton road and the willows beside the Cam. It was raining again, just as it had been last Saturday morning, before everything started to go wrong. Oh God, if only …

If only.

Chrissie. Christine.

Without her his life was meaningless. He didn't know what to do with the day that lay ahead, let alone with the week. And as for months and years … the bleakness was terrible to contemplate.

Wretchedly, he pulled on his clothes and drove out to the health club; somewhere to go on a wet Tuesday morning, that was all.

He sweated some of the alcohol out of his system in the sauna, took a shower, and then wandered over to the jacuzzi.

A young couple were just emerging from the bubbling grey water. Glad to be able to have the whirlpool to himself, Derek sat on the underwater seat, leaned back with his arms stretched out along the edge, closed his eyes and hoped that the power jets would pummel his body into temporary oblivion.

Almost immediately he heard someone else approach. As he moved his long legs, with reluctance, to accommodate the newcomer, he saw through half-open eyes that the masculine body lowering itself into the water opposite him was startlingly simian in appearance: smallish but strongly muscular, and coated with hairs that curled blackly round the edges of the white trunks.

He widened his eyes. The body was now submerged; only a familiar swarthy head and handsome face showed above the water.

‘Well, if it isn't you, Derek!' said Hugh Packer. ‘Small world, eh?'

‘What the hell are you doing here?'

‘Don't be like that! This seemed a good place for us to talk, but it's cost me a packet to get in. I had to book a room in the hotel before they'd let me use the facilities, and buy the swimming gear as well. Still, it'll be worth it in the end. You're pleased with the job I did for you, I hope?'

‘Pleased.'
Gaping with rage, Derek shipped a mouthful of frothy water. It was the need to cough that initially prevented him from launching himself bodily at the man. After that, it was only the fear of drawing the attention of the club staff that restrained him.

‘You bastard, Packer!' he hissed. ‘You've ruined my life because of what you did. I've lost my wife. I've lost everything else I love and value – my children, my home. And now you have the nerve to ask me if I'm pleased! My God, if we weren't in public view I'd –'

Packer was making tutting noises. ‘How very careless of you to lose all that, Derek. But don't blame
me
. You should have thought about the consequences before you agreed to the plan, shouldn't you?'

Under cover of the bubbles Derek lashed out with one leg, trying to slam his heel against the smaller man's groin. But the water absorbed the force of the blow, and all he managed to do was thump Packer's thigh. For the first time that morning the man revealed his sharp wolfish grin. It reminded Derek of exactly what Packer had done to Christine's mother.

‘You bloody pervert,' he said through his teeth. ‘How could you rape a poor defenceless old woman?'

‘Interesting you should ask that,' said Packer in a tone of cheerful detachment. ‘It wasn't anything I'd
intended
to do, believe me! It – well, it sort of came over me. Nothing to do with sex, you understand. God, no. That's what I've got a wife for.'

He paused, with the tip of his tongue protruding slyly from between his red lips. Derek, remembering the big, unhappy, strikingly attractive young woman who was married to the man, spared her a moment's sympathy.

‘As far as I was concerned,' Packer went on, ‘it was just a spontaneous reaction. Nothing personal at all. I'd never actually despatched anyone before, you see, so there was a great sense of power in knowing that I'd got her life in my hands and I could do whatever I wanted with her. Mind you, she put up a resistance – but that only added a bit of spice to the proceedings.'

Derek was nauseated. ‘Bastard,' he spat; ‘you bastard! You promised me you'd do it gently, with a pillow.'

‘No I didn't. That was your idea. I decided it would be in your best interests if I used my hands, because then you wouldn't have to pretend to be surprised when you found her.' Packer chuckled. ‘And I was right, wasn't I? I bet you were so shocked that you fooled everybody. Oh, it really was a brilliant operation, wasn't it?'

‘You're insane!' said Derek. ‘Get out of my sight or –'

Packer was already standing up, though not at Derek's insistence. Instead, with charming courtesy, he was handing an elderly woman – limping arthritically, but game in her swimsuit and floral bathing cap, and dripping after coming out of the pool – down into the jacuzzi.

‘One more step,' he was saying to her, while she murmured delightedly in response to his concern. ‘Steady! There you are, have my seat, I'm just going anyway. All right? Comfy? Perhaps this gentleman wouldn't mind moving his feet …'

Derek shifted them, mumbling an apology to her. He stared with hatred at Packer's extraordinarily hairy back as the man swaggered off. At that moment, Derek felt that he would give anything to see him locked away for what he had done. It would mean confessing his own part in the planning of Packer's crime, of course; but it was such a very small part, and now that he had lost Christine the prospect of being tried for it hardly seemed to matter.