The Punishment She Deserves

by Elizabeth George

  18 MAY

  WORCESTER

  HEREFORDSHIRE

  Trevor Freeman woke into darkness feeling like a man put into suspended animation for a hundred-year journey into space. For a moment he wished that he actually were inside one of those science fiction capsules because regaining consciousness brought into his head a score of mental images that he could have done without. They got the better of him quickly, and just as quickly he tried to dismiss them, but to no avail. They took their strength from their very sources. Two of these were overheard snippets of conversation on the previous evening. The other rose from his own stupid, unquenchable, libidinous behaviour.

  Gaz Ruddock had joined them for dinner as invited by Trevor at his wife’s request. But the unsatisfactory conversation he’d earlier had with Clover, touching on the topic of the PCSO and the convoluted nature of how the dinner invitation had to be extended to the young man, had roused Trevor’s suspicions. As a result, he’d become hypersensitive to everything, both during the meal and afterwards. They’d had their steak, potatoes, salad, and pudding on the patio, and from start to finish each word, action, tone of voice, and glance seemed supercharged to him.

  Clover’s choice of apparel hadn’t helped. Round him, she always dressed with an understated sexiness, but for some reason she’d decided to bypass understatement altogether in her selection of cropped trousers showing off the best ankles in Christendom, sandals—one of which she continuously swung from her big toe—and a top fashioned to fall off her shoulder. Perhaps in a declaration that she’d had to dress hastily, she hadn’t put on a bra. So her nipples made a perky statement on her chest that it would have taken a blind man to ignore.

  Of course, she’d taken care to have an excuse for this clothing, hadn’t she. She was clever that way. He’d been in the kitchen flipping steaks in the marinade when he’d heard her return from work. She’d joined him briefly, saying that she would be available to help out, once she’d changed from uniform into something more comfortable. He was having a look at the baking potatoes in the oven when she called from above, “Trev, can you possibly help me?” and since he had the marinade doing its bit and the potatoes were fine and all that was left was the salad, he went up to see what Clover needed.

  He’d found her in their bedroom, where she had altered herself to a nun. He realised that the costume must have been in the package on their doorstep that he’d found upon returning home for the day. It had also contained the costume for a priest, he reckoned, since she’d laid this out on the bed for him to get into prior to carrying on with what she obviously had in mind: He would be the Catholic priest seduced by the nun. Or she would be the pious nun seduced by the priest in the midst of her prayers. That one seemed more likely as she’d also fashioned a prie-dieu by dragging the ottoman over to a chest of drawers. She was kneeling upon it as she fingered her beads.

  She’d turned as he entered the room. She wore on her face the expression of a young Madonna. She held out her hand to him and made clear what the coming event was meant to be, saying, “Father, will you hear my confession?”

  He’d had not a moment’s hesitation about his desire to play along. Nonetheless, there was something of a problem: the factor of time. He said, “I would do, gladly.”

  She glanced at the bed, where his priest togs lay. “Do you need to put on your garments, Father?”

  “That I do and again, gladly. Unfortunately, you’ve forgotten. Gaz is coming to dinner.”

  She was Clover in an instant. “Damn. I saw the package and completely forgot.” Then she laughed. “Well, I must be quick, then. I did think the randy priest would be the one to orchestrate things, but never mind. Come over here, darling. See what Sister Mary Rosary Beads has in mind for you.”

  “You’re the naughty one, aren’t you.”

  “Always. Come along, Father Freeman.”

  He’d laughed. “Clover, truly. There’s no time.”

  “Oh yes, there is. You’d be surprised what I can accomplish in—”

  The doorbell had gone then, and he’d said, “I expect twenty seconds is beyond even your talents, girl. It’ll have to wait and I hope it does.” He crossed to her, bent and kissed her, easing his hand between her legs to caress her and then dodging as she reached for his zip. He went off and answered the door. He’d welcomed Gaz Ruddock into their house.

  Her proposed encounter should have been sufficient to occupy his mind for the evening until such a time as they could don their respective costumes. Indeed, those moments in the bedroom might well have sufficed to make him blind to everything else save his own anticipation, had he not overheard Gaz saying to Clover, “We can always have a go if”—a remark that he cut off abruptly as Trevor had come out of the house onto the patio with their after-pudding coffees. And then Gaz switched quickly to a compliment on the meal and a stated wish that he could man a barbecue like Trev.

  Trevor, however, hadn’t been easily thrown off the track of what he’d heard so he said, “And what’re you having a go at, you two?” as pleasantly as he could manage.

  “This Scotland Yard business,” had been Clover’s reply. “You know how he can be if he’s pushed.”

  “Who?”

  “Finnegan. Who else?”

  He’d taken a deliberate moment to let the question hang there before he said, “I don’t know. Perhaps you ought to tell me.”

  It had to be said that Clover looked mildly surprised at this but she went on with, “If the Met want a second round with him, they’ll be rougher. I’d like to be there if they show up. Failing that, I’d like Gaz to be there.”

  It would have been nice to name this exchange a deliberate dodging of the question, but he couldn’t do so as it made perfect sense. He told himself it was only his desire for Clover that was making him so attuned to anything smacking of someone else’s desire. He might have held on to that thought straight into the night had he not also heard the softly spoken good-bye Clover had offered Gaz as he’d departed. “We’ll speak later” begged the questions: What exactly would they speak about? Why the secrecy? Why the murmur to ensure her husband did not hear?

  These were the queries first on his mind, then, when she shut the door on the PCSO and her gaze fell upon her husband, whom she’d obviously not expected to be standing so close behind her. But before he could ask for answers, she excused herself with a “Darling, I’ve got to run upstairs for a moment,” and off she went.

  From there, it had been such a simple matter for Clover, hadn’t it? He’d been gathering the barbecue implements for cleaning when she returned to him, outside on the patio. She’d donned the nun’s costume another time, but with a difference. As she slid into his presence, she was wearing only the veil and the wimple with the rosary beads fastened round her waist.

  His first thought was, Christ! The neighbours . . . ! as he looked round for eyes eagerly watching from the windows overlooking their back garden. But he had no chance to remonstrate, for Clover came towards him, and she declared, “Sister Mary Rosary Beads has something very special for you,” as she put her hands on the waist of his jeans.

  Although it was an utter lie because already he felt the belly heat within him, he said, “I’m that done in, Clover. It’ll have to be another night.”

  “Surely not,” she said, and her fingers moved to lower his zip.

  He pointed out that Gaz had stayed later than Trevor expected him to.

  She said piously, “You know the will of God must always come first, Trev.”

  “Must it?” he said as her cool, smooth fingers moved against his flesh.

  “It must.” She mounted the patio table. She crooked her finger. She spread her legs. “Come along,” she whispered. “God’s will be done.”

  Which it was, of course. Which she had known it would be because when it came to Clover, he was weak as a dying fish with a hook in its mouth. And not onl
y there had God’s will been done but later again in the bedroom where, after the washing-up in the kitchen, he’d found her as she’d been earlier in the evening, a nun at her beads. This time she was fully clothed in the costume and she became all surprise and fear to see that a stranger had somehow broken into her cell, where she was solemnly praying.

  He was—damn him—only too happy to find her thus and to play the stranger come to take her against her virginal will, which her terrified “Who are you? What are you doing here?” told him he was meant to be. Afterwards, they’d collapsed together and had fallen asleep.

  That was the thing about Clover. He’d allowed her to know him better than anyone, and what she knew best was that he’d remained like a randy sixteen-year-old boy when it came to her, and most of the reason for this had to do with her crazy sex games. Clover knew that the single simplest way to derail him, distract him, and deny him access to her scheming mind was to give him access to her perfect body.

  Now in the early morning, he stirred in their bed. His body smelled rank, even to himself. A shower was called for, but instead he dressed in tracksuit and trainers and descended the stairs. He could hear the rapid whirring of Clover’s stationary bicycle in the conservatory. She was going at a clip that he could not possibly have maintained.

  That was another thing about her: the importance she gave to staying in condition. Prior to the past few days, he had always assumed her reasons had to do with her father, whose sedentary life as a psychoanalyst and whose personal habits as a heavy drinker and heavier smoker had resulted in his premature death at fifty-four years old. She’d always claimed that she had no intention of following in her father’s footsteps, and while Trevor had admired her single-minded dedication to staying fit—it was, after all, how they’d first met, back in the days when he, too, was a fitness aficionado instead of employing other individuals to be—he could see it as something that served another purpose entirely: keeping her body youthful, tight, and firm in all the right places. And not necessarily for him.

  He went into the conservatory where the early morning’s darkness was just about to give way to dawn. It was still night enough that he could see his reflection in the glass, a little haggard, a little more dumpy, growing jowls where a jaw should be solid and strong. Clover didn’t notice him as she was concentrating on her aerobic workout, dripping sweat onto the towels that she’d laid at the base of the stationary bike. She was wearing headphones.

  He crossed in front of her and sat on the bench that was part of her stationary gym. She looked up and he could see that he’d startled her as he was generally abed till seven. She removed the headphones and continued to pump apace. He had no doubt that the woman possessed the heart of a twenty-year-old.

  A buzzer sounded, calling an end to her aerobic session. She went into her cool-down period, breathing hard and pumping now at a slower pace. She sat straight up and said the obvious. “You’re out of bed early. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  “Bugger that for a lark. I was in a coma. I thought you might’ve given me something.”

  “I did give you something. Two somethings. You seemed to enjoy them as much as I did. Want more? That can be arranged.”

  He knew he was supposed to leer at this, rising from the bench and going to her in order to slide his hand up her thigh. If he went for it, they would end up where she wanted them to be and he would end up yet another time in the position of telling himself that she was one in a million, which made him one in a million when it came to luck and why the bloody hell couldn’t he just enjoy his life with her without rocking any boats. But so soon after their two encounters on the previous night, this offer of hers was more than just Clover having yet another itch that could only be scratched in a single manner.

  Trevor could see from her expression that she had concluded something was wrong. He should have slept in as he would have done in other circumstances.

  She spoke first. He understood from this that she recognised the necessity of getting the advantage. Still, what she said surprised him: “I have a confession to make. Will you hear me out?”

  He was at once wary. “What sort of confession?”

  “The sex was deliberate last evening. I did want you. But it’s not fair if I pretend that I didn’t have something else on my mind.”

  Trevor had hardly thought she’d go straight to the point. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, which was what he said to her.

  In reply, she said, “It’s just that I didn’t want to get onto Finnegan with you last evening.”

  Another surprise. He frowned, saying, “What about Finn, exactly?”

  She was slowing up on the stationary bike, and she reached for her water bottle and drank half its contents. “You’re not going to approve.”

  “I’m listening.”

  She drew a long breath, then blew it out quickly, saying, “I have an arrangement with Gaz. You weren’t ever to know, but I can tell . . . You can’t hide things from me, and I could see last night that you were closing in on it. Trev . . . You and I . . . It’s just that we’ve never seen eye to eye on Finnegan, have we. And now he’s in Ludlow with all sorts of freedoms he didn’t have here and what with that scheme to go to Spain that he cooked up last Christmas . . . You see, I had to consider . . . Well, you know him, Trevor.”

  What Trevor knew was that it was completely unlike her to look for words, which told him something was up and he wasn’t going to like it. He said, “Why don’t you tell me directly what you want to tell me.”

  She slowed her pedalling even more, but she didn’t look as if she was ready to dismount. She said, “It’s this. I’ve asked Gaz to keep an eye out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve asked him to watch over Finnegan. I’ve asked him to let me know if he . . . if Finnegan . . . well, if he goes off track. You know how he can be. That reckless part of him? And what with the freedom to drink as much as he likes and to smoke weed—because you can’t possibly think he isn’t doing both in Ludlow—and with access now to other substances that kids his age use . . . I’ve been worried. And because I knew Gaz from the training centre and I could see he was eager to do well whenever an officer asked him to do something . . . I thought he might be willing to keep Finnegan on his radar, even to look in on him now and again.”

  Trevor said nothing as he digested this. He could see that she was trying to read his expression just as he was trying to read hers.

  She seemed to reach a conclusion, because she went on hurriedly with, “I should have told you about the arrangement before now, but I knew you’d disapprove. I reckoned that Gaz could do everything on the . . . on the sly, if you will. Finnegan wouldn’t know and neither would you. It would look like Gaz was just being friendly. But then with this Ian Druitt situation, it’s all become something of a mess, and I don’t want a mess between you and me. So I’m confessing.”

  Frustration had always cramped his gut when it came to Clover and their son. It did so now. Trevor said, “The real problem isn’t Finn. It’s your inability to sit with the uncertainty of will he or won’t he. He’s been showing you since he was six years old what happens when you insist on walking this path, Clover, but it’s done no good.”

  “Darling, I admit I should have told you what I arranged when he got established in Ludlow, but I knew you’d argue against it.”

  “I’d argue against it because you keep making moves that are guaranteed to rile him, not to mention drive him towards the very things you want to keep him away from: excessive drink, drugs, too many parties, whatever.”

  “I don’t agree. And anyway, we go at things differently, you and I. We always have done.”

  “Christ, Clover.” He rubbed his face and then his bare skull. “We can go at being parents as a result of our past or we can go at it with knowledge of our past. Which of those two d’you reckon describes this thing you’ve got
going with Finn?”

  “This thing? What thing? You sound like my father. This isn’t about him. And it’s not about my mother. Or your father and mother and siblings gathered round the dinner table making happy families, which is what I know you wanted, and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to give that to you, all right?”

  Now that, he thought, was a very clever move, but he wasn’t about to head in that direction. He said, “Agreed. Completely. It isn’t about anyone except the two of us, how we see Finn, and how Gaz Ruddock fits into the picture.”

  “What picture? I have Gaz keeping an eye out, full stop.”

  “Really? There’s nothing more? Are you saying that this request of yours to Gaz comes out of absolutely nothing?”

  “This ‘request of mine’ comes out of the fact that Gaz is out and about all day in Ludlow. He sees things. He hears things. So how difficult could it possibly be for him to let me know how Finnegan’s coping? This entire experience is new to Finnegan: being away from home, living with mates from the college, being exposed to choices he’s never had before. I’ve been concerned, and to be honest, I can’t understand why you haven’t been. Or why you’ve never been.”

  “Because you can’t keep watch over a child every second. If you try to wrap him in cotton wool—”

  “I’m not doing that.” She got off the bike then. She took up one of the towels on the floor and wiped herself energetically with it. She said, “Why can’t you see that I’m only trying to be there for him as best I can? Oh never mind. I don’t want to talk about this as if I’m some sort of mentally defective individual who can’t stop herself from intruding on her child’s life. If you believe that your place just now is to tell Finnegan what his mother has organised—for his own good—then go ahead.”

  That said, she took up the other towel and her water bottle and left him sitting where he was. It was time for her weight training after her aerobics, but she’d apparently determined that weights were better left forgotten this morning.