Before he had had a chance to take in what the man meant, he had whipped the knife under one of his hands and slit the wrist. This really was it. He was going to die, he thought, as the man slipped the knife behind his other hand and did the same to his left wrist. No amount of squirming could have avoided it, and the pain from his nailed hands was still making his head swim. As he bled, the man’s companion secured his legs to those of the chair, and then they were satisfied that they had done all they could to stifle the competition.
‘Die quietly and quickly, my friend. I will not tolerate trespassers in my town,’ was the figure’s parting message, and all three figures slipped out of the door and the captive heard the key being turned.
The cuts to his wrists must have been deep, for already he could feel his life draining away, his head swimming from loss of blood, and the pain still throbbed in his hands, like the ticking of his life-clock, as it marked the end of his existence.
He made a few feeble attempts to move the table and draw attention to himself, but it was too heavy. It had been there since he had first come to the house and was probably solid oak – good English oak. This was one of his last thoughts as his life drained away and down to the floor, into an already spreading pool around his feet.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lauren had been assured that there would be a television appeal tonight, and that the photographs of both the children and Kenneth would be broadcast. When Terry Friend had arrived home with her, she wanted nothing more than to get rid of her. She needed a drink like she’d never needed one before.
She had tried offering one to Terry but had received the expected ‘no’, that she wouldn’t have one while she was on duty. On the pretext of going to the lavatory, she had gone to the downstairs facilities via the kitchen and on tiptoe, where she had extracted an already-open bottle from the fridge and taken it into the cloakroom with her, to swig what was left of it very quickly – and without a glass.
She then called through that she needed to change out of her work clothes and managed to secrete a bottle upstairs with a corkscrew so that she could have another. It also meant that she had access to a breath freshener spray to cover up her clandestine drinking. She knew she couldn’t survive tonight without the oblivion of too much alcohol, and she was beginning to realise that she was developing a habit, if not a downright problem.
The addictive side of her personality overrode that almost sobering thought, and she sat, bottle at her mouth as she worked out a strategy to get rid of her uniformed ‘nanny’. What was she turning into, now that she didn’t have the controlling influence of Kenneth to rein her in when he was at home? In fact, even his presence at the end of the phone line had kept her on the straight and narrow. She had never rebelled as a teenager, choosing to get married young instead, and maybe that side of her was just beginning to show itself now.
She went into the en suite and briskly washed her face, put down the bottle of wine with the cork stuck in it lightly, and went downstairs to tell Terry that she would phone her mother to come over, without enlightening the PC that her mother lived in the Cotswolds. If only she could get rid of her she could think things through. The children were probably unlikely to come to any harm in Kenneth’s care, and she needed to get herself rat-arsed to face the long night ahead without news.
In the rented house, Gerda served the pudding flaming as it should be done – she had learnt that from her time in England – and with a huge tub of ice cream to accompany it. She knew the children would not want to eat it without something to mask the taste, and she also knew she needed to get them to eat enough of it to knock them out. She’d also have to hope that Kenneth had sufficiently digested his lunch and drunk enough to be feeling greedy, if not actually hungry again.
The children had played without supervision the whole afternoon and into the evening, while Kenneth had dozed in an armchair and she’d had time to think that although she had looked after the little brats, and had become fond of them for a while, nothing could ever make her love them. Her affair with Kenneth had begun soon after she had become the family’s au pair/nanny, and she wanted to wipe out all evidence of Kenneth’s previous life with them and Lauren. He was hers, now, and she and he would make a new life together with their child.
Unaware of any of these machinations, all three of them cleared up their ice cream, Kenneth also polishing off his portion of pudding.
‘I don’t like Christmas pudding,’ Sholto stated, putting his spoon in his bowl.
‘Neither do I,’ echoed Jade, mirroring his actions from across the table.
‘But you must eat it!’ Gerda was already feeling panicked. ‘If I give you more ice cream, will you just eat a little bit of it? After all, it is so English.’
‘It tastes like poo,’ said Sholto defiantly.
What should she do if they wouldn’t eat any of it? ‘Tell them they have to eat some of it, Kenneth, after all the time I took to make it.’
‘You didn’t make it, you just steamed it.’ Even Kenneth was not being co-operative as he helped himself to another portion and refilled his wine glass. She shouldn’t have put the drug in the pudding. What could she do now?
‘Just a couple of mouthfuls, please,’ she almost pleaded. ‘You can have a big portion of ice cream with it.’
‘Daddy, stop drinking so much wine. You’ll get sick like Mummy,’ said the boy.
‘And how long does she have to be in hospital?’ asked Jade. ‘I want to see her.’
‘Please, just eat a little bit of your pudding – for Gerda, please.’ Everything was going wrong.
‘Shan’t!’ Sholto was defiant at mention of their mother.
‘Eat some of it, you little shits!’ Kenneth had reached that stage of drunkenness that led to belligerence.
Jade began to cry, and spooned the tiniest piece into her mouth. Even her brother’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Why are you being like this, Daddy?’ he asked, also taking a small mouthful. ‘I want to see Mummy, too. Will you take us to the hospital?’
‘Daddy will take you tomorrow if you eat up all your scrummy pudding.’ Gerda felt very cunning at this response. Only she knew that they would be dead tomorrow.
‘And don’t you dare speak to my children like that,’ Kenneth retorted.
Gerda started back with shock. Why was he reacting like that? Was it just the booze, or was it something about her? Everything was getting muddled and going wrong. Of course, it didn’t help the situation that she had had quite a few nips for Dutch courage before she had served the pudding.
‘I think it’s time we all went to bed,’ she declared. The children had eaten half of their portions, and that should be enough. Kenneth had had two, and would sleep like the dead, she hoped, as the booze mixed with the sleeping tablets. Or maybe she didn’t know him as well as she thought she did. He worked in a dry country. Previously, as the hired help, she was kept out of the way as much as possible when he was at home. The only time she had been alone with him then was during their trysts, when Lauren was at work, and she had not really had the occasion to see how he reacted to large amounts of alcohol. Today he had certainly consumed enough for him to suffer from what she had been reliably informed was referred to in English as ‘brewer’s droop’.
‘Come on, everyone, upstairs to bed. Kenneth, you help the children while I clear up.’ Kenneth was barely in a state to get himself to bed, let alone the children, but they would cope, she was sure of it. ‘I’ll be up when everything is cleared away, Kenneth,’ she cooed.
She needed to stay down here and think awhile. She knew she could manipulate Kenneth’s emotions, but she’d have to settle his unease at what she would have done by morning.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lauren dragged her sorry ass upstairs to bed at quite an early hour. She had drunk too much, but didn’t plan on stopping yet, knowing she had an opened bottle upstairs in the en suite. The alcohol had taken the edge off her desperation for news of her children, an
d she was now quite confident that the forces of law and order would prevail in returning them.
Sitting down on the bed, her mind now slightly numbed from her rapid intake of alcohol, she began to review the last year of her life. It had really blown up in her face. Twelve months ago she had been an ordinary wife and mother, going about her daily work, and getting on with things as best she could. Then, she had discovered that her au pair was sleeping with her husband, and that it had been a long-term arrangement, taking place under her very nose.
If that hadn’t been enough to cope with, her errant husband had left his family and gone off with the au pair and she’d had to disrupt the children’s lives by removing the children from their prep schools, as Kenneth would no longer pay the fees. She had to employ someone to look after them after school every weekday, and now Kenneth had come back and abducted the children. On top of that she was having a secret physical relationship with a younger fellow officer. What had happened to the ordinary, respectable woman she used to be such a short time ago?
Shrugging everything off as she managed to struggle out of her clothes and was just settling down with a mug of now un-chilled white when the doorbell rang out, so loud in the silence of the house that it made her jump. Who on earth could that be? If there had been any news of Kenneth and the children, surely someone would have rung her.
She staggered to the window and looked down to the front door, and an inebriated smile split her face. Well, stone the crows, it was Daz Westbrook. But wasn’t today Friday? Shouldn’t he be embroiled with Operation Zee-Tee and all that entailed? She was surprised to remember this detail with everything else that was going on in her life. Opening the window, she called down to her unlikely Lothario, ‘I’ll be there in a minute. Don’t go away.’
Using her hands on the landing wall, she carefully made her way to the head of the stairs, then clung on to the bannister to maintain her balance. With her free hand she pushed her hair out of her face and pulled down her nightie. She must try not to appear too drunk; she didn’t want to repel him and what he had on offer was important to her. Blinking her eyes hard as she got to the foot of the stairs, she shook her head to try to clear it.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked groggily. ‘And how did you know where I lived?’
‘I’m a detective,’ he replied, ‘and I’m just playing hooky for a while from all the losers who are being brought in to be questioned and charged. Most of the arrests are just for a warning of being in possession of a Class C drug and a statutory fine, and a lot of the rest are merely pissed and need somewhere to sleep it off before being charged with drunk and disorderly. They won’t miss me for an hour or so.’
‘I thought I’d missed our liaison,’ she replied, summoning up a little enthusiasm for a game or two. ‘Come on in.’ As he crossed the threshold, she grabbed at his shirt and pulled it open. He slipped his hands underneath her nightie, and they never made it upstairs, but stumbled into the living room and collapsed onto the sofa in a jumbled, already copulating heap.
She must have been hazier than she thought because, before she knew it, he was getting dressed and readying himself to leave. ‘Do you have to go already?’ she asked, realising that she had been barely conscious while he had worked away. This wasn’t at all what she had hoped for.
‘Gotta get back,’ he said nonchalantly, ‘I’ll text you,’ and she realised that she didn’t care. She wanted another drink more than she wanted anything else, and she let him go without another word as to when she’d see him again. When he had gone, she heaved herself back upstairs and started in on the remaining wine in the bottle. She needed to sleep, and there was no Olivia with a handy sleeping tablet to come to her aid tonight.
Back at the station, Olivia had developed a thumping headache due to the falling-out with her work partner and what had happened at the school, and had decided that, because none of the arrests was for anything serious, she would go home and get some sleep, to see if she could shift the pain. She had already taken a couple of painkillers, and would take some more when she got in. She knew she’d be on duty all weekend because of the nature of the operation, and she was not looking forward to it.
It was only eleven o’clock, but at least she could be fairly sure that Hal would be at home – such a pity that the school week had finished, and she would not be around to spend a little time with him. She’d hardly seen him since he had gone back to supply work, and she missed someone who was not directly involved in her job to talk to about it.
As she swung into the drive she could see his car, so he was definitely there. As she went through the door, she called out in a jocular manner, ‘Honey, I’m home,’ but received no answer. There was a flapping noise, and the kitten that she had obtained for Hibbie at Christmas, at great inconvenience at that time of year, slunk through the living room, now considerably bigger than it had been when it had entered the household.
Hibbie was never there to look after it, and her mother had got rather sick of falling over it when she went into the kitchen late at night for a glass of water. She knew she should have turned on the light, but she didn’t see why she should change her ways just because of an animal. And it pained her, the draught that blew in from the cat flap when she was cooking in the coldest part of the winter. Damn Hibbie! If she ever left home – again – she could take it with her.
Her mood had soured in an instant, as the headache declared that it was not beaten yet, and she went to the kitchen drawer where she kept some paracetamol. She could understand both their son and daughter being out on a Friday night, but where the hell was Hal? He must be at home if his car was outside.
Mounting the stairs, she found Hal dead to the world, in bed. How dare he, when she needed him most? She shouted his name, and then lost her temper. ‘How can you treat me like this?’ she shouted. ‘I’m in hell at work, we’ve got some ghastly cases at the moment, and you’re never here any more. How can you be so thoughtless? I need someone to talk to about everything otherwise I shall burst. You were only going to do a bit of supply, and now you’re simply never at home.’
Hal merely raised his eyebrows and stared at her as she realised what she had said. Damn, she was taking him for granted, and she never asked him about his day, but had always expected him to draw her out to release her tension. He didn’t need to say anything: his silence spoke volumes.
With an angry stamp of her foot, she stomped downstairs, furious at him for being right, and not even having to tell her she had slipped into thoughtless habits. However, tonight was not the night to look at her like that, she thought, as she uncorked a bottle of wine. Damn this tightrope that she had to walk between work and home. Would she ever get the balance right and make it to the other side in one piece. At this rate, she might make it to the other side, but she might do that on her own, with Hal long gone. Bugger, she’d have to make it up to him, but she really did have to work this weekend.
Hal didn’t even stir when she went upstairs for the second time, and she slipped in to bed beside him and dropped into a deep sleep, emotionally exhausted, only to dream of dead babies and women with no eyes.
Gerda sat for a couple of hours girding her loins for the task before her. Eventually she went upstairs and checked on Kenneth. He was sprawled on top of the duvet, still fully dressed and looked like he would not wake for some time. Then, she tiptoed into the children’s room – they had been persuaded to share a room so that they would not be scared if they woke in the night and couldn’t remember where they were. At least, that’s what Kenneth thought. For Gerda it was more a case of being able to dispatch both of them more easily.
They both seemed to be spark-out, and she got a pillow from the third bedroom so that she could smother them while they slept their drugged sleep. This would be the easy bit. It was dealing with Kenneth tomorrow that would be the real test of her powers of persuasion.
In the master bedroom, Kenneth stirred. Something that Gerda didn’t know about him was tha
t he was fairly inured to alcohol, and that too much of it disturbed his sleep rather than aided it. He had drunk heavily before he took the contract in the Middle East, originally in an attempt to break his self-destructive addiction. He was a big man, and the proportion of the ground-up sleeping pills had not been enough to floor him.
He opened his eyes, feeling groggy, but began to get to his feet as a floorboard creaked and one of the children stirred, whimpering in their sleep. On automatic pilot, he got to his feet, slightly surprised that he had not got undressed before collapsing on the bed, and made his way to the next bedroom. Gerda had not been there by his side, so it was his duty to attend to whichever of them was, perhaps, having a nightmare.
As he got out on to the landing, he almost fell, but gritted his teeth and carried on towards the room that the children were in, all the while wondering where his new woman was, his mind grasping on to the fact that he was going to fight for the custody of his offspring come what may.
As he pushed open the door, he could not believe his eyes. Gerda was standing over the double bed with a pillow in her hands and, as he watched, put it over Sholto’s innocent little face. What the hell was she doing?
Gathering all his wits, he lunged in her direction, and managed to knock her off balance. ‘What are you doing?’ he yelled, waking both children, who immediately started to cry for their mother.
‘You don’t understand, Kenneth,’ she said, pulling herself back upright and reaching again for the pillow. ‘Go back to sleep, good little children,’ she soothed, but there was a murderous glint in her eyes. ‘They have to go, so that we can be alone with our baby.’
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