She sensed Angela relenting slightly. Maybe she recognised the desperation in her voice. Not that she would be much moved by that. Come to think of it, Angela had always given every sign of disliking her, even when they were at school together, even when they were supposed to be friends.
‘It’s not working, I just tried it, it might be the batteries, they don’t seem to hold charge, he’s been meaning to get new ones,’ said Angela. ‘As soon as he gets in I’ll tell him to call you. That’s all I can do. Give me your number.’
Jennifer did so. It was the best she was going to get. Anyway, she supposed another few hours wouldn’t make any difference. She was probably being hysterical.
In North Devon, Angela replaced the receiver and reached for the message pad kept on the little shelf by the phone. It was where the whole family jotted messages and everyone checked it religiously. That way Todd would get his message as soon as he walked through the door, even if Angela had already gone to bed – which was quite likely knowing his cricket nights. Blast. The notebook wasn’t there. She roundly cursed her boys, one of whom had doubtless not replaced the book where it should be kept. Her endeavour to extract an admission from any of them proved fruitless. They barely paused in their extermination of innocent planets featured on the latest computer game which they had jacked into the living-room TV. The noise was deafening. And the baby was crying again – that child never seemed to stop.
Angela swiftly abandoned her rather half-hearted search for the notepad, and began a futile attempt to quieten her now screaming daughter.
‘To hell with Jennifer Stone,’ she muttered to herself.
When Todd Mallet came home there was no written note waiting for him, and his wife was, indeed, already in bed and asleep.
While she waited for Anna, Jennifer towel-dried her hair and then set herself up in her study with laptop computer and tape recorder. She jotted one or two thoughts into the laptop, just as she had done every day since the whole business had begun.
Then she braced herself for an unpleasant task, but something she none the less wanted to do. She wound back the tape in her voice-activated recorder and listened to her conversation with Marcus. It had only lasted around half an hour, she realised, but it had been the longest and most terrible half hour of her life.
She began to transcribe the tape methodically into her computer. By the time the doorbell rang she had almost completed the transcript. It made chilling reading.
At the front door she paused. She wanted to be quite sure who was outside. She peered through the peephole, and there stood Anna, comforting, wonderful Anna, clutching a woollen-wrapped bundle which presumably contained Pandora. She opened the door laughing.
‘Shush,’ commanded Anna.
Jennifer dropped her voice to a whisper: ‘Do you want to put her to bed?’ she mouthed.
Anna nodded. She followed Jennifer upstairs to a bedroom. Jennifer pulled back the duvet on one of the twin beds, and Anna carefully unwrapped her bundle and revealed a deeply sleeping Pandora. The child barely stirred as her mother laid her gently in the bed. Jennifer pulled the cover around her neck. Pandora snuggled down. A wonderful expression that, and when you watched a child settling into deep sleep you really knew what ‘snuggling down’ was, Jennifer thought.
She realised she was just standing there appreciating the peacefulness of the little girl while Anna tugged impatiently at her arm.
Together they left the room.
‘Come on,’ said Anna, taking charge. ‘Let’s sit down with a stiff drink, you look absolutely diabolical.’
‘Thanks,’ replied Jennifer.
But she caught a glimpse of herself in one of the mirrors on the landing, and it was indeed the truth. She had not dried her hair properly, or combed it through. It was damp and tangled. There were dark bags under her eyes which were still red and swollen from the tears she kept being unable to prevent, and her skin was blotchy and raw-looking for the same reason.
Downstairs she headed for the kitchen to make drinks. Anna steered her to an armchair in the sitting room.
‘Sit down, for Chrissake,’ she commanded.
Jennifer did so, obediently like a child.
Anna disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of Scotch, an ice bucket, a big bottle of fizzy mineral water and two glasses.
‘I don’t drink whisky,’ remarked Jennifer mildly.
‘Exactly,’ said her friend.
And Jennifer was reminded of the uncannily similar incident with her mother two days earlier. Two days? Was it only two days? She could not believe all that had happened.
Anna handed Jennifer a tumbler filled almost to the brim with whisky and ice and water, then poured a much smaller one for herself. She had to drive Pandora home, after all.
She watched Jennifer take a deep drink and slump back in her chair.
‘Shoot,’ she ordered.
Jennifer just looked at her. She didn’t know where to begin. She said ‘Umm.’ No more words came. As ever, Anna seemed able to almost read her mind.
‘Begin at the beginning,’ she coaxed.
And so Jennifer did. She began with how she had found the body of Marjorie Benson in the sea at Pelham Bay, how Mark Piddle had come to interview her and they had embarked on an all-powerful relationship that had lasted most of their adult lives.
This much Anna knew. Then Jennifer told her about the disappearance of Irene Nichols, Mark’s former girlfriend, which Anna also knew about because after Irene’s body had been found she had read about it in the papers – all of which had mentioned the Piddell connection – but Anna was amazed that Jennifer had never told her about it in all their years of friendship. Surely it wasn’t the kind of thing you forgot. And Anna, who did not mean to interrupt, heard herself say exactly that.
‘In a way I did forget,’ said Jennifer in a very small voice. ‘I made myself forget, which is just part of my guilt.’
She went on then, becoming more and more fluent, taking Anna through it all in chronological order, how the old nightmare had returned from the moment of her return to Pelham Bay; and how, with every new little piece of information she gained, her terrible suspicions about the man that she married became a growing certainty.
She told Anna of the half-mad plot she had hatched. Her determination to trap Marcus. How she had decided to sleep with him again, to convince him that she was indeed his kindred spirit in more ways than just sexually. She had been sure she could do it if she kept her head. And she had been sure she was the only person in the world who could trap Marcus: that was why she had felt compelled to go through with it.
She told Anna almost every detail of the night she spent with Marcus, and how she tricked him in the morning so she could search his flat and how she took the computer tape to Dominic.
Then she stopped.
‘But you still don’t know for certain, do you?’ Anna queried.
‘Oh yes I do,’ said Jennifer. ‘I went back. Then I played my trump card. You haven’t followed it, have you?’
‘Not entirely, obviously,’ admitted Anna.
‘I convinced him that we were a true pair, that I only wanted to be his equal, to share every secret with him. He always said we were two of a kind. I convinced him that was so. That way I knew I could trap him.’
She stood up.
‘This afternoon I spent three hours in bed with Marcus, during which we drove each other to the heights of physical excitement that we could only ever reach together. At least, as far as he was concerned we reached them.’
Her words were quite clinical. She sounded robotic. It was the only way she could do this.
‘Sexual power is an extraordinary thing,’ she went on. ‘Marcus knows he has always had complete sexual power over me. That is why each time I have left him I have never dared see him again. In spite of whatever I might be feeling about him, I could never trust myself. I banked on him overlooking the sexual power I have always had over him, or at least, in hi
s usual arrogant way, totally ignoring the possibility that I might ever use it against him.’
Anna was just staring at her, mesmerised.
‘Stay there,’ said Jennifer.
She was in charge again now, even if only briefly.
Jennifer left the room and returned with her little tape recorder. She put it on the coffee table.
‘When we had finished in bed this afternoon, I called Marcus’s bluff,’ she announced in a matter-of-fact manner. ‘It worked. And this is the result.’
She pushed the recorder’s play button and went back to her armchair opposite Anna. As the tape played she drank whisky steadily and watched her friend’s face. Anna appeared to be quite stunned. The conversation ended before the tape. Jennifer rose to turn the machine off. After she had done so, there was complete silence in the room. Anna leaned forwards and poured herself another whisky.
She looked at her friend. Jennifer’s face was blank, expressionless.
‘God, you took a risk,’ said Anna at last.
Jennifer seemed startled. ‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘He could have killed you,’ replied her friend in a hoarse whisper.
‘No,’ said Jennifer, gingerly fingering her side which was beginning to display fairly substantial bruising. ‘A kick in the kidneys was as far as he could go. Marcus could never quite kill me. In any case, in the end he didn’t think he had a reason to.’
And she told Anna how she had tricked Marcus with her second tape recorder.
Anna took a swig of whisky.
‘I have never been so shocked in all my life,’ she managed to say.
Then: ‘Why haven’t you taken this straight to the police?’
‘After I turned off the tape, his last words to me were: “Half the top cops in the Met are Friends.”’
‘Oh come on, Jennifer, he’s bluffing you with that. It’s too far-fetched.’
‘Really. I’m sure he was bluffing when he said half – but I wouldn’t like to call his bluff that they don’t have anybody high up in the Met. Anyway, can you think of anything much more far-fetched than this entire story?’
Anna admitted that no, she couldn’t, not off-hand.
But in that case she wanted to know exactly what Jennifer was planning to do. It seemed to her that her friend was sitting on dynamite.
Jennifer explained about Todd, the one policeman she could trust. She was waiting for him to call. Either in London or back in North Devon, she would make sure she saw him in the morning. That would be the beginning of the end of it all. What else could she do?
Anna had no fast answer to that, but still some questions to put.
‘So who are these murky ‘Friends’, do you know?’
Jennifer shook her head. ‘I’m not even sure how much Marcus knows about who they are. After I’ve talked to Todd tomorrow, that will be for the police and I suppose the government to find out, won’t it? All I do know is that they are devious enough and powerful enough to have enabled Marcus literally to get away with murder. He really has turned into a monster.’
Anna put her now empty glass on the table at her side.
‘Have you considered the danger you are still in?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think I am actually. I told you. Marcus does not think I have any evidence.’
‘Maybe not, but his friends may want to play safe.’
‘He thinks he has dealt with it, he probably won’t even tell them.’
‘Maybe not,’ said Anna again.
‘Are the doors and windows locked?’ she asked.
‘Anna, the place is like Fort Knox. Look, folding bars, all shut and locked. And we have a state-of-the-art alarm system. Marcus always insisted on incredible security—’
Jennifer paused, realising what she had said.
‘Ironic really,’ remarked Anna, pouring herself yet another Scotch.
Jennifer experienced a brief flash of normality. ‘Anna, you’re driving. You mustn’t drink any more.’
‘Coming from you that’s rich – but you are right,’ said her friend. She thought for a moment.
When she spoke again she sounded decisive. ‘You shouldn’t be here on your own. Look, let’s get a taxi back to Barnes, and you stay the night with me.’
‘I told you, I’m waiting for Todd to call,’ said Jennifer stubbornly.
‘All right, then I’ll just have to stay here,’ said Anna. ‘No reason to go home with Dom away in any case. Just remind me to phone him before we go to bed. He’ll go frantic if he rings home and only gets the answering machine.’
‘I love you, missus,’ said Jennifer.
‘I should think so,’ her friend replied. She added that she was starving. As usual she had fed her daughter and forgotten herself. What about getting a pizza delivered? Jennifer agreed readily enough, although she was not a bit hungry. The thought of food made her feel sick again, in fact.
But she dialled the number of the local Pizza Express and let Anna do the ordering. As she did so she reflected that she was glad Anna was staying for more reasons than one. It had not occurred to her before that she might be putting her friend in danger by confiding in her, and it was typical of Anna that she did not think of it that way either. None the less, it was reassuring that Anna would be with her now until the whole business was dealt with – because her security really was first-class. She was sure nobody could get to either of them as long as they were locked in the Richmond Hill house.
When the pizza arrived, Jennifer was surprised to find that she was hungry after all. The smell of it seemed to revive her battered senses. She opened a bottle of red Italian wine, and the two women settled down to eat and drink. While they did so they went over and over again the implications of the last few days.
‘It sends shivers down my spine,’ remarked Anna. ‘I just can’t understand how a man like Marcus could go mad like that. The first murder of Irene is just too awful on its own, but then to go on and kill two more in the same way. And don’t forget that’s just what he has told you about.’
‘Don’t,’ said Jennifer.
Anna repeated that she didn’t understand how Marcus could have allowed himself to be taken over by the same sexual behaviour again and again, when he knew how dangerous it could be.
‘There is nothing more compelling than the sex urge,’ said Jennifer, who knew what she was talking about. ‘Look at the way men in the public eye go again and again to massage parlours and knocking shops. They know they are going to get found out, and yet they can’t stop themselves.
‘Look at the way men in powerful positions come to believe that they can literally get away with anything, that the laws of the land aren’t for them, that they can get away with murder if they choose. Right back through history there are examples of men in high places believing they are above and beyond the law.’
Anna sighed. ‘The sex urge and the power complex,’ she said. ‘There is also the survival urge – and that is probably the greatest of all, whatever you say. While we are citing examples of such things, did you read about that couple in America who were involved in the Mafia and killed their own daughter because she presented a threat to them?’
Jennifer shook her head.
‘Well, maybe you should look it up in cuttings – if you get the chance,’ said Anna.
‘Don’t be melodramatic’ replied Jennifer.
‘Melo-bloody-dramatic? My best friend tells me that her exhusband is a mass murderer under the control of some secret effin’ criminal organisation, and then she says I am melo-bloody-dramatic?’
She was beginning to get a bit drunk. They both were.
‘Shall I open another bottle?’ Jennifer asked.
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather call a cab and be bundled off to Barnes?’
‘Quite sure.’ Jennifer didn’t think that was a good idea at all.
‘Oh … Get another bloody bottle then.’ Anna gave in.
An hour or so later she called Dominic.
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‘Don’t say anything on the phone,’ instructed Jennifer.
‘Do you think I’m effin’ daft?’ asked Anna in reply. She had every intention of saying as little as possible to Dominic anyway. He would know she had drunk far too much as soon as she spoke, he always did.
When the two women had finished the second bottle, they prepared for bed.
‘Are you sure this blessed house is safe?’ asked Anna one last time.
‘Nobody could get in here, I promise you,’ said Jennifer.
‘And before I come up I shall put the alarm on down here. If a mouse coughs we will be wakened by the biggest racket you have ever heard – and it’s connected to the cop shop.’
‘Ah, to Marcus’s friends,’ murmured Anna.
She was slightly drunker than Jennifer, but then, she didn’t usually drink as much any more.
‘Go to bed,’ said Jennifer. ‘New toothbrushes, towels et cetera in the bathroom for you.’
Anna obediently hoisted herself up the stairs. Jennifer watched her with affection. At the top of the stairs, her friend turned. She stood above her holding the banister and swaying gently.
‘Have you got mice then?’ she asked.
‘Go to bed,’ said Jennifer once more, giggling in spite of everything.
Anna focused with difficulty, and all that whisky and red wine was starting to cause problems with her diction.
‘D’you remember when I told you Pelham Bay wasn’t Hollywood? Place ish more like bleedin’ Chicago! It’sh like a gangster movie, thish … The Pelham Connection…’
She threw her arms above her head in an extravagant theatrical gesture and nearly fell over.
‘Go to bed, Anna,’ said Jennifer yet again, this time as sternly as she could manage. But she was grinning broadly.
Dear Anna, what a good friend she was. Uncertainly Anna began to make her way along the landing to the bedroom she always used when she stayed with Jennifer. But she turned for one final time, and wagged a finger at Jennifer in what was supposed to be an imposing manner.
The Cruelty of Morning Page 27
