Dead Romantic (19 page)

In the bedroom he opened the top drawer of the dressing-table. He moved back a pile of underwear to reveal a couple of old packets of Durex which had been there for some time. He hesitated briefly, before making his decision and putting the packets into his toilet kit. He unzipped the top of his case and put in the toilet kit. Then he took the case downstairs.

In the kitchen he took out some old newspapers from the cupboard where they were kept and wrapped them round the two bottles of champagne he had taken out of the fridge. There were another four bottles in the car, but those would have plenty of time to chill at Winter Jasmine Cottage. He had checked with Mrs Waterstone that there was a fridge. It was only for dinner that evening that he needed the cold ones. He secured the newspapers round the bottles with thick rubber bands.

He stood still for a minute and went through a mental check-list of all the things that he had needed to do before leaving. Yes, all the details seemed to have been covered.

All except one. He had one more thing to do and then he could set off, the third fantasy converging on the reality of Winter Jasmine Cottage.

Chapter 20

Madeleine did not notice the police car drawn up at the roadside just outside Pulborough. She was a prudent driver who always kept within speed limits, so the police held no fears for her, anyway. As the Renault approached the town's thirty-mile-an-hour limit, she slowed down, a fact that the two constables in the Rover noted with approval. But they took little notice of her; law-abiding drivers held no interest for them.

The Mini that was following, however, did merit their attention. The untidiness with which it slowed down after her alerted them, as did its wobbling course across the road. The police driver nodded to his companion and the white car slid out in pursuit.

Paul's vision was blurred and it took him a few moments to identify the source of the flashing lights. Eventually he found the rear-view mirror and managed to focus on the car behind. He saw the whiteness and, as it passed under a street-lamp, the blue dome of the light on top. The headlights continued to flash, obviously urging him to stop.

He only hesitated for a moment before pushing down his foot hard on the accelerator and swinging out to overtake Madeleine. He didn't have to keep behind her. He knew the address. He could find her.

An oncoming vehicle made him cut in sharply, causing Madeleine to brake. The police car's blue light and siren were switched on. When the oncoming car was cleared, the police driver accelerated and pulled out to overtake the Renault. Madeleine tutted and continued driving at twenty-seven miles an hour as the police car surged ahead.

Paul's foot was flat down on the accelerator, but the Mini hadn't as much power as the Rover behind him. He twitched at the steering-wheel to negotiate a roundabout, made too wide a circle and mounted the kerb. By the time he had righted himself, the police car was even closer. He kept his foot down, but the Rover pulled out and drew alongside. The constable in the passenger-seat was waving him down.

Still he kept going, so the police car surged ahead until it was in front of the Mini, and slowed down. Paul tried to pull out to overtake, but there was a car coming down from the opposite direction, fast. He had no alternative. He braked and stopped the car.

Both policemen got out and came towards the Mini, one on either side. The one nearer Paul indicated that he should wind down his window. ‘In rather a hurry, aren't you?' he said, without humour.

Paul nodded, trying desperately to think what he should do next. The policeman sniffed and looked across at the passenger-seat where the half-bottle of whisky caught the gleam from a street-lamp. ‘Have you been drinking?' he asked. ‘I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you –'

But he didn't get out the rest of the sentence. Paul, who had not switched off the engine, slammed the car back into gear, and accelerated again. The policeman leapt aside as the Mini jumped forward.

Paul jerked the wheel to the right and pulled out around the police car. There were oncoming headlights close, very close. He swung the wheel wildly and the Mini, missing the other vehicle by a whisker, careered across to the opposite side of the road and came to rest with its right-hand wing buried in a street-lamp. The driver of the other vehicle brought his car to an untidy stop as the two policemen moved vengefully across towards the immobilised Mini.

At that moment Madeleine's Renault 5 caught up with them. She noted with disapproval that there had been an accident and pulled out cautiously to go round the stationary Rover. She was aware that the two constables were helping someone out of the Mini, but she could not see who it was. She drove on towards Winter Jasmine Cottage.

Paul was shaken, but not seriously hurt. The car had not been going very fast at the moment of impact.

‘Now what the hell do you think you're playing at?' demanded the policeman he had nearly run down.

‘I'm in a hurry,' said Paul, the words loose and slurring on his tongue.

‘We could see that,' said the constable grimly. ‘Is this your car?'

‘It's my mother's.'

‘Oh yes? Can I see your licence?'

‘Look, I'm in a hurry,' Paul was suddenly desperate. ‘I'm in a hurry! I've got to go somewhere!'

The policeman shook his head implacably. ‘No, son,' he said. ‘You aren't going anywhere tonight.'

Chapter 21

Bernard paused for a moment in his bedroom before he changed his clothes, and thought about his wife. Would it have been better, he wondered, not for the first time, if he had not told Madeleine he was married? Might their relationship have been freer, less inhibited by secrecy and guilt? His feelings for Madeleine were so strong, so well-defined, that their affair should not be limited by outside considerations.

But, even as he thought this, he felt relieved that his wife had been mentioned. It was better to proceed cautiously at first. The existence of an ailing wife in the background gave him a kind of security. If things didn't work out with Madeleine, he would have an excuse for ending the relationship: his conscience could not cope with the strains of duplicity. And if his love for Madeleine developed as he hoped it would, then there were many, simple ways of disposing of Shirley Hopkins.

He was not ungrateful to her. She had taken the pressure off him on many occasions. The fact that people knew him to be married had frequently saved awkwardness, and the fact that his wife was crippled had prevented curious probings into his private life. People were so bloody nosey, so prurient, it was difficult to keep any secrets. But respect for his sick wife had kept everyone at a distance from Bernard; colleagues from work had not come to visit him at home; a few had suggested social engagements, but he had always had the excuse of his wife's infirmity to make polite refusals. He had used the excuse in all his previous employments during the last five years, the seven other teaching jobs he had had before Garrettway.

Shirley explained so much about Bernard. She explained his shyness, his lack of sociability, his unwillingness to mix with people outside a work environment. She answered unspoken questions about his sexual nature; she made him a respectable eunuch. People thought (as Stella Franklin had): Poor man, he must have all the normal masculine urges and yet he's saddled with a crippled wife; he can't have much of a sex life, it must be very difficult for him. And, having reached that conclusion, the curious then put him from their minds and asked no further questions. Which was exactly what Bernard wanted.

Shirley was, in fact, the ideal partner for him. It was the perfect relationship.

So long as he didn't fall in love with someone else. It was then that his security was threatened. There had been other women before Madeleine, affairs that had nearly started, but which had failed and from which he had escaped, using the excuse of Shirley. And, though each skirmish had left him confused, frightened and exhausted, he had on each occasion managed to drag himself back to sanity, to reassert the
status quo.

But none of the other women had affected him as Madeleine did. For the first time in his life, at an age when he had almost written off the possibility, Bernard Hopkins had fallen in love and, though he tried to argue against it, he knew that this was the affair he had to see through. Madeleine offered him a chance of catching up on all his lost opportunities, of living a normal life, and in those circumstances his relationship with Shirley became irrelevant.

It would no longer work. If things turned out well with Madeleine, Bernard would not need Shirley. And, her value as an excuse gone, the existence of a wife slowly succumbing to multiple sclerosis would become nothing more than an embarrassment. He would have to get rid of her.

But not yet. See how the weekend with Madeleine went. Keep the options open. Bernard had learned by experience to be prudent, not to rush into things. He might still need Shirley, and his wife might once again have to provide the excuse for which he had invented her.

The idea had come to him suddenly when being interviewed for his first new job after his mother's death five years before. The principal of that particular language school had asked if he was married and the affirmative answer came out instinctively. Once the lie had been perpetrated, Bernard recognised its advantages and began to add to it.

The name had been the first embellishment. Shirley, his mother's name, had come automatically to his mind. And, from the moment she had been christened, the new Shirley Hopkins showed her worth. From the start, she protected her husband from speculation. But then a colleague asked him to come to dinner
with his wife,
and Bernard, again instinctively, had had to invent Shirley's illness. As his creation grew and developed, he found increasingly that she helped to fill the void his beloved mother's death had left in him.

Bernard Hopkins looked around the bedroom of the house where he had lived all his life, with both parents till his father's death fifteen years before, then with his mother until she too had died, ten years later. And since that time, alone.

He looked at the single bed in which he had slept all his life. He looked at the clothes laid out on it. He felt calm now, as he slowly undressed. And calm as he put on the brown herring-bone sports-jacket and dark grey flannel trousers which had belonged to his father, and which Bernard Hopkins had worn for the killings of four prostitutes, the most recent of whom had been called ‘Mandy'.

Madeleine knew that she was likely to arrive at Winter Jasmine Cottage before Bernard. He had told her of his class with the Italians and given her Mrs Waterstone's instructions about the key under the water-butt. It suited her well to be there first. She could look around, start their dinner, make up the bed, change into her black dress, maybe add a few little feminine touches to the place, be welcoming when Bernard arrived.

She drove with care down the rutted track from the main road. She might have missed the little turning off to the cottage but for the very specific instructions Bernard had given her. It felt later than it was; there had hardly been any traffic since Pulborough. It was a dark night, but her headlights already caught the sparkle of frost on the ground, which was hard and dry. There had been no rain for ten days.

All she felt now was excitement. The fear had gone, leaving only a flutter of anticipation inside her. She was secure in her disguise, secure in her alibi. Madeleine Severn was driving to meet her lover.

She gripped the steering-wheel with her gloved hands and peered ahead as the laurel hedge appeared in her headlights. The Renault 5 turned in through the entrance and stopped on the crisp gravel so that the full beam illuminated Winter Jasmine Cottage. It was perfect – small, old and beautiful. Her fantasies could not have provided a better setting for her sacrifice.

Even in November, Winter Jasmine Cottage looked comforting; in the summer it must be heavenly. A new fantasy started to grow in her mind, of the two of them living permanently somewhere like this, working together in the garden on long hot afternoons, hearing the calls of birds and the cheerful cries of children.

She took a torch from the glove compartment and stepped out of the car. The coldness of the air stung her cheeks. The night was absolutely silent. There was no distant hum of traffic, and no birds sang. The crunch of her shoes on the gravel sounded unnaturally loud.

It was a lonely place, but it did not frighten her. On the contrary, its isolation felt so right that it made her even more excited. Here was somewhere outside normal life; it fitted exactly the specifications she had mentioned to Bernard: ‘somewhere magical, somewhere private, that's just for us.' She recalled that when she had first said this, she had followed it with the quotation from Marvell,

‘The grave's a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.'

The idea seemed funny and she giggled aloud in the darkness. It was so wonderful to know that she would soon be with Bernard, someone who understood her literary allusions, someone who could complete quotations for her, someone who was intellectually as well as physically compatible. At last the man had been found who would complement the infinite variety of Madeleine Severn.

The torch-beam found the water-butt. It was propped up on bricks, so she had no difficulty in reaching underneath for the key. She went round to the front door and opened Winter Jasmine Cottage.

The light, when switched on, revealed that the door opened straight into the living-room, though there was a curtain on a rail to act as a draught-excluder. The cottage's interior also matched Madeleine's fantasies. The living- room was small, with chintzy curtains drawn back from diamond-paned windows. It was dominated by a large fireplace, which took up most of one wall. In front of this two armchairs were cosily spaced. They were covered in material with a design of pheasants on it, worn but not shabby. Behind them was a small dining-table with two chairs. Everything seemed to be planned for two. On the walls hung a selection of paintings, glassware and wood- carvings, souvenirs from the Waterstones' holidays in Europe before the war. In one corner stood an old harmonium with faded purple silk panels. The ceiling was low and bisected by a black, uneven beam.