A Dish Served Cold

by Diney Costeloe

  Chapter 2

  It was dark and wet in Cardiff Road by the time Roger Smith limped home. He had thrown his clothes on and hurried out after Charleigh when she left the house, catching up with her just as she was about to go into The White Hart, a pub they had occasionally frequented. When he called her name she paused at the door and looked back.

  “Charleigh,” he called again. “Wait.” He was clearly out of breath and leaned against the wall, his chest heaving.

  Charleigh waited, laughter dancing in her eyes. “Rog,” she cooed, “did she let you out then? What a naughty boy you are!” Then as Roger was still struggling to recover his breath she went on, “Going to buy me a drink, then lover? It’s the least you can do…after my disappointment,” and she laughed again, a deep throaty laugh, and jerked her head towards the bar. “Come on,” she encouraged, “you look as if you could do with one yourself.”

  Roger felt that he could, indeed, do with a drink, and followed her into the pub. Charleigh wandered over to a table in the corner, calling over her shoulder, “The usual please, babe.”

  Roger joined her at the table with her Manhattan and his large scotch. Charleigh reached for her drink and having taken a sip she leaned back against the settle and smiled broadly, showing her even, immaculately white teeth. “Well,” she said, “isn’t this nice.”

  “Charleigh,” began Roger, “I’m so sorry….”

  Charleigh cut him off. “Don’t worry, Rog. Probably better this way, eh? My Gordon’s beginning to get suspicious, like. I was going to tell you when we’d finished today that I think that’ll have to be it for a while. Know what I mean?”

  Roger began to protest but Charleigh cut him short again. “After all,” she went on, “you wouldn’t want to have a run in with my Gord now, would you. He’s a big bloke, Gord, you know that. You seen him.”

  Roger had indeed seen him and certainly didn’t want to have a run in with him. However, nor did he want to give up seeing Charleigh. He had spent a great deal of time and money seducing the beautiful Charleigh and now, finally, when he’d actually got her to agree to come home with him, when he’d actually had her in a proper bed with him…the blood rushed through him even as he thought of it and Charleigh burst out laughing, guessing his thoughts and their result. She reached over and patted him on the thigh, a move which made him almost leap in the air.

  “Cool it, babe,” she murmured, still with laughter in her voice.

  “That bloody woman,” Roger spluttered. “Oh, Charleigh! When I think…”

  “Think you’d better stop thinking, babe, before you do yourself a damage!” advised Charleigh, her eyes mocking him over the rim of her glass as she sipped her cocktail.

  “You’re a teasing bitch,” muttered Roger bitterly.

  Charleigh, entirely unfazed by this epithet, squeezed his thigh again and said, “Yeah. Lovely i’n’it?” Then with one quick tilt of her arm she drained her glass and got to her feet. “Better be off now, babe,” she told him. “Got to meet Gord in half an hour. Don’t want him to be any more suspicious now, do we?”

  “Meet Gord? But I thought we were going to…I mean you were going to…”

  “Oh no, lover,” Charleigh told him blithely, “I wasn’t never going to stay all night if that’s what you thought. I never do that. My husband expects me home.” She stood up and kissing one finger leaned over and laid it on his lips. “See you, babe.”

  “Will you? See me I mean?” Roger knew he sounded pathetically eager, but he couldn’t help himself. Just looking at Charleigh brought on an ache to his groin. She knew it well and looking at him from under her lashes she mouthed another kiss and said huskily, “Who knows, babe? You might be lucky, eh. Perhaps I will call you again if Gord’s away one afternoon, but you’ll have to take me somewhere nice, know what I mean? Not in your office or your house, neither. Somewhere nice and comfy, like, where we won’t be interrupted just as things get interesting.” With these words she swung her jacket over her shoulder and walked across the room and out into the night. Roger, his eyes glued to the swing of her denim-encased hips, watched her go and then slumped back against the wall. She’d gone, and it might be weeks before he could entice her into his bed again, if at all. Sweat broke out over his face and his hands felt clammy round his glass. He downed the last of the whisky and then bought himself another, swiftly followed by two more. He drank the fourth one more slowly and considered what had happened.

  He had first met Charleigh when she had come into his shop with some jewellery to sell. It was mostly Victorian and he accepted her story that it belonged to her grandmother who, now short of cash in her old age, needed to sell it.

  “Poor Gran,” Charleigh had said her eyes huge with tears, “it breaks her heart to let it go, so if you could give us a decent price, you know…” her voice trailed off and she turned the full force of her tear-filled eyes on to Roger. Of course he had not been deceived. It was possible that the pieces did actually belong to Charleigh’s grandmother, but if they did, he doubted if she knew they were up for sale. However, it was one of his lines of business to accept such stories and to ask no awkward questions. He turned the two brooches and the necklace over in his hands and made her an offer. A few minutes more bargaining settled the price, and he assured Charleigh, as she had now identified herself, that he was always happy to help in such cases and if her grandmother found herself needing to sell anything else to raise a little more cash, he would be delighted to oblige her.

  Charleigh had beamed at him and said she would tell her Gran how kind he’d been, and if there was anything else she’d be certain to bring it to him.

  After that she came in on a regular basis and though they both kept up the pretence that Gran was off-loading all her valuables to stay alive, it was just that, a pretence; both were perfectly well aware of what their actual business was. Charleigh was openly flirtatious and it wasn’t long before Roger was helplessly under her spell. The day she brought him a selection of watches which could never have belonged to Gran, he invited her to go out for a drink and she accepted with alacrity. From then things moved on at a steady pace with more drinks and quiet little dinners until one evening they had gone back to the shop for a night-cap. Charleigh had drunk more than her share of the wine and was in an extremely giggly mood, clinging to Roger’s arm and rubbing herself against him. It was more than he could stand and within moments they were locked together on his office floor, their clothes cast in every direction. From that evening, if there was no one in the shop when Charleigh came in and he could persuade her, Roger would put up the closed sign and they would go into his office, which he had quickly equipped with a large squashy sofa. He couldn’t always persuade her and thus she kept him on tenterhooks, teasing him and then slipping away without allowing him to touch her.

  “You’re a real bitch, you know that, don’t you,” he growled at her on one such an occasion.

  “Yeah, lovely i’n’it?” she giggled as she evaded his grasp and headed for the door. “See you, babe.”

  Then, one Saturday afternoon, Charleigh came into the shop accompanied by a huge man whom she introduced as her husband, Gord. Gord towered over Roger by almost a foot; bullet-headed, his hair little more than a Velcro covering on his scalp. Indeed, it seemed to Roger, he had more hair on his stubbly cheeks and on his massive forearms than on his head.

  Christ! thought Roger, pale at the sight of him filling his shop, muscles bulging from the short sleeves of his black tee-shirt, his chest the size of a barrel. He was her husband! Charleigh’s husband!

  “Er, how do you do, Gord?” Roger’s voice was a croak as he extended his hand.

  “’Llo mate.” Gord had replied, ignoring the outstretched hand and looking round the shop. At last he turned his gaze back on Roger and said, “My missus says you’re OK.”

  “Oh,” said Roger feebly, relief flooding through him.

  “Says you’re OK to do business with, know what I mean?”

  Roger
wasn’t at all sure he did know, but he nodded and waited for Gord to go on. He was, after all, always open to a bit of easy business.

  “You got discerning customers, yeah?”

  Roger shrugged faintly and said, “I like to think so.” He spoke with more confidence now, now that he realised Gord hadn’t come to murder him for screwing his wife.

  “And some of them will probably have set their hearts on things that are a bit difficult to find, like.”

  “Yes, one or two. I am often asked to keep my eyes open for particular pieces when I go round the antiques shows…and other places?” He added this last in a voice that trailed upward interrogatively.

  “Yeah, well I might be able to help you there,” Gord said. “Know what I mean?”

  “Well, no, not really,” Roger replied cautiously, and Gord glanced quickly at Charleigh who nodded encouragingly.

  “A mate of mine and me, well we often have stuff which would sell, like. Good stuff mind, no rubbish, and we need someone to put it on the market, like.”

  “I see,” said Roger, still cautious.

  “And if there was, like, anything that you wanted particular, we could probably get it for you.”

  Roger decided to take the plunge. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re offering to steal to order for me.”

  “’S right, or give you first call on the stuff we get, whatever.” Gord looked across at Charleigh and said, “Char says you pay a fair price for what she brings you.”

  Roger had to acknowledge the truth of this, though he did not admit that the reason for his generosity was so that she would keep coming back to him. Gord had said she was his wife and looking at the hulk standing in front of him he had no wish to tangle with him. He had to assume that Charleigh hadn’t given Gord any hint of their affair and could only be profoundly grateful to her. She was standing behind Gord now and as she caught Roger’s eye, she raised one finger to her lips and then winked at him.

  The deal was struck and over the next few weeks Gord produced several articles of furniture and some extremely good china. Roger couldn’t display them in the shop, of course, but he did have a few customers who were not choosy where their antiques came from, provided they were of good quality. Business flourished but because Gord might turn up at any time Roger’s lust for Charleigh had to be held in check. He had no wish to find Gord walking in when he was enjoying the charms of Gord’s wife. Charleigh came round far less often and there were no more encounters on the squashy sofa in the office.

  It was because of this, that he had finally persuaded Charleigh to come home with him. Normally if Pam had said she wanted to go to London to visit a friend, Roger would have put all sorts of obstacles in her way, but as he was about to remind her that she would not be able to stay the night because he’d need his dinner on the table at eight sharp, it dawned on him that if Pam were out of the way he might entice Charleigh to join him in the comfort of a proper bed. The fact that it was also Pam’s bed worried him not at all. As far as Roger was concerned Pam had no rights; he kept her, fed and clothed her and that was all she was entitled to. As far as he could see she made no contribution to the family or its budget and so had minimal entitlements. With cool calculation he gave her leave to visit some woman she had met on a computer course, who now lived in London. When the day came he handed her enough money for her return fare and once she had walked out of the door gave her not another thought. His mind was filled with the agonisingly delicious anticipation of a whole night with Charleigh. She had agreed to come readily enough and because he had the whole night, he had assumed she had. He took no time to consider what explanations she would offer Gord.

  Now, as he sat in the pub drowning his disappointment, he blamed the whole fiasco on Pam. If she hadn’t come home without warning, none of this would have happened. He and Charleigh would have been passionately employed in his bed all night. The fact that it was doubtful if he could ever have stayed the pace with the energetic and inventive Charleigh for a whole night, never crossed his mind.

  He drained the last of his scotch and rose somewhat unsteadily to his feet. He crossed the bar to the door and as he did so he glanced through the archway into the public bar. There, propped up against the bar with his arm draped round Charleigh, was Gord. Their heads were together and they were laughing uproariously about something. For a moment he paused and Gord, glancing up met his eye and began to laugh again. Flushing deep to the roots of his receding hair, Roger turned away and hurried out. All the way home he brooded, wondering if Gord knew and condoned his fling with Charleigh. What had they been laughing at so loudly? Roger wondered. Had she told him what had happened? How that cow Pam had interrupted them and shrieked like a fish wife? Surely not. She wouldn’t dare, she was too afraid of Gord’s anger…wasn’t she?

  It was as he walked home and that he noticed the pain in his foot again. When he had been sitting down there had been no pressure on his heel, but now as he stumbled along the street he knew sharp pain every time he put weight on it.

  There must still be a piece of glass in it, he thought viciously. Stupid bloody bitch, fancy hurling something into the mirror like that. Well, I’ll teach her a lesson, and afterwards, if she cuts herself clearing it up…serve her bloody right.

  When he finally reached the house, it was in darkness. Fumbling in the dark, he took some time to insert his key, but at last he managed it and bursting with pent up rage, he flung the door open so that it crashed back against the hall stand. He reached out for the switch and blinked as the hall was flooded with light. The house was silent, but he’d half expected that. Pam was, no doubt, still locked in the study so that he couldn’t get at her. She’d done that before, stayed in there all night, waiting for his anger to abate as the alcohol left his body. Well, she could bloody well stay there now as far as he was concerned. If she hadn’t cleared up the mess in the bedroom he would sleep in Karen’s bed and he’d make her do it in the morning. After all, it was her fault there was broken glass all over the floor.

  Roger crossed to the kitchen and when he opened the door he was greeted by the smell of burning. Clouds of grey smoke were escaping from the oven and as they wafted out into the hall they set off the smoke alarm at the bottom of the stairs. Its penetrating shriek made Roger jump out of his skin. He grabbed a newspaper from the kitchen table and slamming the door behind him ran into the hall, flapping the paper madly at the alarm until the smoke had drifted away again and the shriek subsided into silence. There was no sound from upstairs, but there was no way Pam could have missed that dreadful sound.

  Too scared to come out, thought Roger with grim satisfaction and turned back to the kitchen. He eased himself in through the door, trying not to let any more smoke escape into the hall and gave his attention to the oven.

  When he had thought Charleigh would be staying all evening, he had made preparations for dinner. Feeling extremely self-conscious he had been to Marks and Spencer’s food hall and chosen some exotic-sounding ready-made meals so that they could enjoy a romantic dinner in an interlude between sessions in the bedroom. He had got out the instructions for the oven and had worked out how to set it to come on automatically before placing the food in it, so that it would cook itself. Cook itself it had and continued to do so long after it had turned from overdone - to crisp - to cinders. Roger hadn’t bothered to work out how to set the oven to turn itself off, so it hadn’t. When he switched it off now and then opened the oven door, smoke billowed out and he was faced with two charcoal dinners in crumpled containers. He took hold of a tea towel and reached in to pull one out, but the container was so hot that the tea towel gave him little protection and he dropped the meal with a yell. Blackened food sprayed itself over the floor and Roger swore in fury. Using a proper oven glove he retrieved the other dinner from the oven and slung it into the bin. He looked down at the mess on the floor, and kicking the pieces together into a sort of heap, he left it where it was. Pam could clear that up in the morning, too
. After all if she hadn’t locked herself into the study she would have smelled the meal beginning to burn and turned it off.

  Roger pulled open the fridge and surveyed its contents, but the cold meats and salad stuffs didn’t appeal to him and he ended up opening a tin of soup and eating some bread and cheese. This he washed down with most of a bottle of red wine, so that when he finally mounted the stairs he was decidedly unsteady on his feet, and his righteous anger at all the trouble Pam had caused was undiminished. He glanced into the bedroom and saw that it was just as he had left it, with glass strewn across the floor and the bedclothes in disarray. He went to the study door and tried the handle. As he had expected it was still locked and he imagined Pam cowering behind it. He brought his fist down on it with a bang and bellowed, “I know you’re in there, you stupid bitch. I’ll sort you in the morning, you see if I don’t.”

  No reply, but he hadn’t really expected one and lurching into Karen’s room, he collapsed on the bed and fell into a deep, inebriated sleep.

  Chapter 3

  In St Jude’s Cottage, Stone Winton, Sylvia Durston replaced the phone and returned to her sitting room. Crossing to the window she drew back the curtain and looked out into her moonlit garden. All was still and peaceful, silent in the light of the full moon, but it was bitterly cold, the ice already solid in the bird-bath, the frost crisping the spiky winter grass of the lawn.

  Not a night to be stranded out in the cold somewhere, Sylvia thought, as she closed the curtains again and returned to her chair by the fire. Poor Pam, she did sound desperate. She’s obviously in trouble, but why contact me? I haven’t heard from her for ages.

  Sylvia thought back over the years she had known Pam. They’d first met at secondary school and become friends, outgoing Sylvia protecting the more retiring Pam from the classroom bullies, Marcia and her gang. The gang had grabbed Pam’s satchel as she walked home from school one evening and had dumped her homework in a puddle, laughing at her cries of dismay. From nowhere, it seemed, Sylvia had appeared, and snatching Marcia’s own satchel, had returned the compliment. Sylvia was a popular girl in the form, and after that Marcia and co had backed off, leaving the mousy Pam in relative peace.