The Cruelty of Morning

by Hilary Bonner

  ‘You smell so clean, so sweet,’ he said.

  She swung around to face him and offered him her lips. He kissed her long and slow and deep. As ever he pushed himself against her and she could feel that he was already aroused. Typical Marcus.

  ‘When do you want your Bloody Marys, before or after?’ he asked.

  She put a hand lightly over his crotch.

  ‘That’s what I want,’ she replied, which was, of course, what he had expected her to say.

  ‘You’re as randy as ever, you sexy bitch,’ he muttered approvingly. ‘Why did you ever leave me? I always told you we were two of a kind.’

  ‘Maybe we are – but I left you because you are a monster,’ she told him.

  ‘True enough, I expect,’ he replied.

  ‘You humiliated and degraded me – but none of that, apparently, seems to stop me fancying you to distraction.’

  ‘That’s because I give you what you want.’

  His voice was a low growl and he wasn’t smiling now. He brushed a hand between her legs, raised his fingers to his face and breathed in the scent of her. ‘I know what you need.’

  It had been true for so long.

  She stepped back, deciding to take control, which she knew he liked.

  ‘Undo your flies,’ she commanded.

  He did so. He was wearing his customary cotton jockey shorts beneath, which did not do a lot of good. His erect penis jumped out at her, as usual.

  She did not touch him.

  ‘You know what I promised you,’ she said softly.

  His whole body stirred.

  ‘Can I undress first?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she replied.

  And she sank to her knees and took him in her mouth as he stood before her fully clothed in his beautifully-cut pin-striped Italian suit. His silk tie was still elegantly knotted around the neck of his Jermyn Street shirt, his feet clad in the inevitable Gucci brogues, shined to mirror finish. For a few brief seconds he felt a bit of a fool, then the magic of her tongue cast its spell over him. She was expert and it didn’t take long. When his moans of pleasure grew louder and she felt his whole body tense, she withdrew her mouth – there was a limit to what she was prepared to do. He came all down his immaculately pressed trousers and the spunk dripped onto his perfectly polished shoes. Obscurely, she thought with some satisfaction that, although it did not matter to him now, he would later be most annoyed at the state of his clothing. He was that kind of man.

  She looked up at him, standing there panting, eyes glazed over, immersed in his own sexuality.

  ‘Now it’s my turn,’ she said.

  ‘Now can we get undressed?’ he asked.

  She nodded, and pulled off her tee shirt, revealing only the briefest black panties and lacy bra fresh from Marks & Sparks. He reached out and touched her first on her breasts and then between the legs through the silky material.

  ‘Leave those on for a bit,’ he said.

  He led her to the bed where she settled as comfortably as she could while she watched him take his clothes off. As always he folded everything neatly, and she rather hoped his trousers were ruined. He lay down on the bed beside her and played with her through her panties. He was quickly hard again. He wanted to be inside her and took it for granted that she wanted it too. He rolled over on top of her and did it to her around the side of the panties. It felt as if her every nerve-end was raw. The material rubbed into her, giving extra friction, and he enjoyed seeing her breasts strain against the silly bra as she writhed in orgasm. It did not occur to him that her climaxing could be anything other than genuine.

  When he thought that she had finished, he pulled out of her and removed the bra and pants. Now for the serious business. He had her from behind over the side of the bed, then he laid her on her back and piled pillows beneath her, so that her pelvis was lifted and she was wide open for him – just like the first time he had made her come twenty-five years earlier. He turned her on her side and went in from the back; always he was in control. Finally he made her kneel, and with great, heaving strokes he brought himself to climax.

  Afterwards they lay breathing heavily in each other’s arms. He had returned home just before one o’clock. It was now three-thirty, and they had barely stopped for two-and-a-half hours. She was exhausted. His stamina remained daunting. He was, as ever, totally confident of his power over her, and he must have been satisfied at last, because he suddenly remembered that he was hungry.

  ‘Good God, when did we last eat?’ he asked.

  She lied that she did not remember. She could hardly tell him about her Italian cafe breakfast.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Bloody Marys and bacon sandwiches.’

  He went into the bathroom and returned with his black silk dressing gown and a luxurious cream towelling robe which he threw to her. She followed him into the kitchen and watched him put good smoked bacon on the grill and half-baked French baguettes into the oven. While the bacon was cooking, he made a lethal-looking Bloody Mary in a huge jug: a generous slosh of Polish vodka, the juice of three or four limes, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, celery salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, a spoonful of mustard and a slurp of tomato sauce for thickness; all well stirred, topped up with chilled tomato juice and poured over crackling ice cubes. He gave her a glassful in a crystal tumbler and she gratefully took a deep drink. He did make great Bloody Marys. She watched him slice open the warm baguettes, apply a thin scraping of butter and a generous layer of English mustard, and pile them full of bacon. He passed her one.

  She was too nervous to eat much, and anyway had already eaten that huge breakfast, but he devoured his baguette hungrily. When he had finished and he had poured them each a third Bloody Mary, he leaned back in his pine kitchen chair and gazed at her appreciatively.

  ‘I do love you,’ he said. She was startled.

  ‘I’m not sure you have ever told me that before,’ she replied. ‘Except in bed.’

  “Course I have,’ he insisted. ‘And I miss you to distraction.’

  ‘Hmph,’ she said. ‘You don’t like having your style cramped.’

  ‘I was a fool,’ he said. ‘If I ever got another chance I wouldn’t mess it up.’

  ‘I wish I could believe you,’ she said.

  ‘Do you?’ he asked.

  ‘Do I what?’

  ‘Do you really wish you could believe me?’

  ‘I suppose I do, yes.’

  ‘Well, you can.’ His eyes were inside her head again.

  She wriggled uncomfortably in her chair.

  ‘Why does it matter if I believe you or not, anyway?’ she asked.

  ‘Because you won’t come back to me unless you do,’ he said.

  He was ablaze with sincerity.

  ‘And, I want you,’ he went on. ‘I want you more than anything else in the world.’

  ‘I’ve always known that Marcus,’ she said. ‘That has never been the problem.’

  He laughed, then stopped abruptly.

  ‘I want you to be my wife again. I don’t know why I let it go wrong. Would you ever consider giving me another chance?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘Is there anything I can do to make you consider it?’ he asked.

  She let the silence stretch, as if she were giving his question serious thought. He did not take his eyes from hers.

  ‘There might be,’ she said.

  ‘Anything,’ he replied.

  She took another deep breath.

  ‘There are two things I would absolutely demand were I ever to become your wife again. The first is that somehow or other you would have to gain control of your more unpleasant urges. No more other women – but most of all no more children.’

  He looked shocked. ‘They weren’t children, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘As near as dammit as far as I’m concerned,’ she replied. ‘Anyway, I don’t think you’re capable of giving up that side of your life.’

  ‘Of course I am,’ he
told her, and, as always, he meant it – at the time of speaking.

  She sighed. ‘If I ever found you with young kids again … I would kill you.’

  She was very convincing. He blinked at her.

  ‘You will never have cause, I promise you, my darling,’ he said.

  She sighed again. ‘Let’s say I believe you. And go on to the second condition. No more secrets.’

  He raised one eyebrow.

  ‘I mean it, Marcus.’

  He gave in. ‘What secrets?’

  ‘The kind of secrets that would put you in jail for the rest of your life.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said.

  She put down her glass. ‘OK Marcus. The game is over. I know more about what you have done than you can possibly imagine. I know more about why than you could ever guess. I know where you have been and where you are heading.’

  Marcus’s expression darkened. He downed the remains of his third Bloody Mary in one.

  ‘Stop talking in riddles,’ he commanded.

  ‘That’s another thing. Don’t ever again tell me what and what not to do,’ she said.

  He sneered at her. She was pleased to see that she was getting through at last, cracking the veneer. That had to be a hopeful sign.

  ‘You don’t say that in bed,’ he remarked crassly.

  ‘That was cheap and unworthy of you,’ she fired back.

  ‘Yes, maybe.’

  He was half apologetic, looking down at his empty glass.

  She did not put him out of his misery.

  ‘Look, what are you saying?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘I’m saying that I know,’ she replied simply.

  Her gaze was direct. He found that it was unnerving and opted for bravado. Typical.

  ‘What do you know?’ he asked. His smile was a toothpaste commercial.

  ‘For a start I know that you killed Irene Nichols,’ she said.

  The smile froze on his face. Like a trapped fox he smelt danger, and like the wily old dog fox that he was, all his senses were suddenly alert. He was going to give nothing away, keep his options open, seek out the extent of the danger. He was at his best in tight corners. His eyes were blank as he stared back at her, meeting her gaze. All she could see was emptiness. The ultimate solution: shut it all out, feel nothing. She waited for him to speak.

  ‘I think you’ve gone crazy,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe,’ she replied.

  She made her own eyes go blank too. He could see nothing at all in their deep greenness, and he sensed a ruthlessness in her that he had never before realised was there – but then, he had always said they were two of a kind.

  She began to talk, keeping her voice low and deliberate, and choosing her words with care. She knew exactly what she was going to do now. She had been over it all again and again in her mind.

  Her voice sounded as cold as she had intended. ‘Maybe I’m crazy to want to go on. But I do. I want my share of you, I want all that you have. I’ll go along with you, but only if it’s a true partnership this time.’

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I don’t know what on earth you are talking about,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes you do, Marcus.’

  She paused. The silence was long. Eventually she spoke again.

  ‘Bill Turpin told me,’ she said.

  ‘Bill Turpin?’

  That really put him on red alert.

  ‘Told you what?’

  ‘Pretty damn near everything, I’d say.’

  He studied her face. When he laughed it sounded dry and hollow, like wind through a rusty drain pipe.

  ‘Bill Turpin would not talk to you or anybody else,’ he said finally.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. But he did tell me.’

  ‘You’re speaking in riddles again.’

  He had walked over to the sink and was rinsing his Bloody Mary glass under the tap. It was something to do, and it meant he could turn his back on her. She could no longer see his face, and he was no longer looking at her. That was a relief to her too. She bit her bottom lip, concentrating hard. One false step now and it was all over.

  ‘Bill Turpin called me at the paper,’ she went on. ‘He said he wanted to talk to me about you. I was busy and I didn’t take a lot of notice. We always used to think he was half-mad, remember? Then I had the fight at the office. I just walked out, got in the car and drove – West, naturally.

  ‘On the way I started thinking about Bill, and you, and how it all began, and instead of driving to mother’s as I had intended, I went straight to the cliffs and to Bill’s cottage. I knocked on the front door and there was no reply. I walked round the back and I could see Bill slumped over the kitchen table. The back door was on the latch. I went in. He had fallen across the tin box of goodies the police found. What they didn’t find was Bill Turpin’s diary. I have that.’

  ‘What diary?’ Mark swung round. It was nice to see him looking pale and shaken.

  ‘Bill Turpin kept a diary. He wrote down everything. I don’t know why he kept it, but he did. Like I don’t know why he wanted to see me. I never knew him, our only link was you. I don’t know if he wanted to confess, or if he wanted to hook me too. Both unlikely, I should have thought, but he did call me, and I do have the diary.’

  Marcus was desperately trying to recover. ‘What do you mean, hook you?’

  Jennifer took a deep breath.

  ‘It was all in the diary. How you went out of control and killed Irene Nichols, how you turned to Bill Turpin for help, how the body was disposed of. And how you have belonged to Bill and his people ever since.’

  ‘What rubbish,’ he said.

  She decided it was time to play her trump. She threw the copies of the Bill Turpin notebook onto the table. The computer codes jumped up at him.

  ‘I also have his master disc,’ she said. ‘I know about the direct access into G7, and I know the way it works. I know that you have used the Recorder to make an unbelievable fortune. I know there is a driving force behind you.

  ‘I know that the level of manipulation and corruption you are involved in is staggering, and that you could never get out of it even if you wanted to because of the weaknesses in you that have put you in the position you are in.’

  She stopped and looked at him. He didn’t say anything. He was leaning against the sink. She noticed that his hands were trembling, which was encouraging, but he had not broken yet.

  She had no choice. It was a risk, but she was going to have to go for the ultimate bluff.

  ‘And I know you have murdered more than once,’ she blurted out.

  His eyes were very bright. He still didn’t say anything.

  ‘That’s the précised version,’ she went on. ‘I can give you more detail if you wish. It’s all in the diary.’

  ‘What are you going to do with the diary?’ he asked as casually as he could.

  ‘That depends on you.’

  He just looked at her questioningly.

  ‘If you do what I want I shall burn it.’

  ‘And if not?’

  It was her turn to shrug.

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘Do you think I would bring it here? You are a killer after all.’

  He turned away.

  ‘You know I would never hurt you,’ he said softly.

  She said nothing.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked at last.

  ‘I want to know everything and I want to be part of everything,’ she said.

  ‘OK,’ he said.

  She smiled. ‘You have to trust me as much as I will have to trust you. I understand your weaknesses and I also know your strengths. I want to be part of it all with you. You have always said we are two of a kind. I want to get to the top, to the very top, at your side. But I have to know everything first, the whole truth, the dangers and rewards we would face together.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, if you want me on your side … Get talking,’ she ordered.

&nbs
p; He seemed to have dropped his pretence of not knowing what she was talking about. He walked back to the table and sat down opposite her, trying to stare inside her head, the way he always had. Everything that she was saying, everything about her indicated that she was as full of ambition and lust and as empty of principle as he was. He had indeed always said they were two of a kind. He had not recognised how much further that went than just their sexual appetites. As he tried to read the deepest recesses of her mind, he began to realise how much he wanted to believe that she really would go all the way with him. Together they could take over the world, she and he. He supposed he had always known that, wanted that more than anything.

  ‘There are things I have never told anybody—’ He stopped.

  She felt no need to speak.

  ‘—I’m not sure that I can, not sure that I dare.’ He looked tired suddenly.

  ‘Two of a kind, Marcus…’ She said it again.

  Barely a murmur.

  He nodded.

  ‘Hasn’t the burden been lonely?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘Well, then,’ she encouraged. ‘We can fight all the battles together. Together our future could be glorious.’

  Oh, how he wanted to share it with her. What a relief it would be. His eyes were locked onto hers. She waited for him to speak.

  ‘I’m not sure you know what you are asking. There are things I try not even to think about. I am not an evil man, Jennifer, but I have done evil things.’

  ‘I have told you,’ she said. ‘I know a lot already, from the diary. So far I know nothing I cannot live with. You have killed, but I don’t think you ever meant to.’

  She never failed to surprise him. He grasped the straw.

  ‘Of course I didn’t. They were accidents, all of them.’

  All of them? So she was right – there had been more. She must not allow herself to flinch.

  ‘Begin at the beginning,’ she instructed calmly. ‘Begin with Irene. That was the beginning, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘That was the beginning.’

  She had known it. Maybe always known that so much of what had happened to both of them in their lives stemmed from that time so long ago in Pelham Bay.

  ‘Go on, tell me about Irene.’ She was coaxing him. He reached for the vodka bottle and the ice bucket.