The Silent Sleep of the Dying (Eisenmenger-Flemming Forensic Mysteries) (9 page)

"Thanks, but I don't smoke."

By now she had lit up and she was drawing in the smoke as if it gave her something that oxygen never could. With a sigh she leaned back and let the smoke stream out from her lungs, an expanding column from the round of her lips, heading for the ceiling. "You would if you had my job," she remarked.

"Bad day?" he asked. She laughed.

"They're all bad."

She had no drink and his glass was nearly empty. He offered to get her a drink and she smiled and said, "Bacardi and Coke, please."

It was while he was paying for the drinks that he placed her. She was a rep on one of the stands at the back of the conference. Her partner was a tall, muscular-looking blond chap who had struck Hartmann as being really rather moody. When he gave her the Bacardi, he said, "You're one of the reps, aren't you?"

She had finished her cigarette and was starting a second. She took the drink with thanks and sipped it, leaving a red mark at the glass's rim before she nodded. "That's right. Wiskott-Aldrich. King bastard company of the world."

"That good, eh?"

She smiled and he decided that it was a nice smile. She drained her drink with another long swallow and said, "Absolutely. Who'd be a rep? Would you?"

He admitted that no, he would not. But would she like another Bacardi? She protested that it was her turn, but he was not to be denied. By the time he returned she had shed her jacket and he could not help but notice how pneumatic she was.

Proffering a thin, manicured hand she said, "I'm Claire, Claire Verner," to which he said, "Mark Hartmann."

And it was about this time that he later remembered thinking how wonderfully easy and natural all this seemed.

She wanted to talk and he was happy to listen. Around them the lounge became full and noisy but it seemed to Hartmann that theirs was an isolated spot, away from the rest of humanity. She told him how long the hours were, how poorly she was paid (before commission) and how sick she was of hotels. She had changed companies six times in the past eight years and she had decided she was reaching the end of her patience with selling, but she didn't know what else she might do.

He asked her occasional questions, noticing that she was becoming slightly drunk and that she was leaning more and more towards him, drawing him into intimacy. He, too, was becoming drunk, but that didn't bother him in the least. At the back of his mind he began to wonder where this might lead …

It seemed that she was single and that she had a boyfriend called Jerry whom she hadn't seen now for five weeks, both because of her job and because he was European Sales Manager for a computer software house and therefore hardly ever in the country. She didn't ask about his personal life and he didn't tell her.

He did ask about her companion, the blond, surly man and she said, "Alan?" Then she laughed. "Alan's no help to a girl. He's as gay as they come. You'd be far more likely to get off with him than I ever would." And they both laughed.

It was eleven o'clock and after they had both consumed a pleasantly large amount of alcohol that she said quite suddenly, "Shall we go to bed?"

He looked at her, unable to believe what he had just heard, unable to believe that he had not misheard and unable to believe that his vague, fantastical wishes had just so spectacularly come true. For the first and only time that night, he also felt a single brief spasm of guilt, but then it had gone, and lust rushed in to fill the space.

*

After he ushered her into his room, he was suddenly taken by panic at how to proceed next. He needn't have worried, however, for no sooner had he closed the door than she embraced him and planted her lips upon his. Even before this had ended he could feel her hand moving down around his crotch, the heel of her palm rubbing up and down, up and down.

She pulled away. "Come on," she said, and she took him by the hand and pulled him towards the bed. She began to strip with astonishing speed and was naked before he had finished unbuttoning his shirt. The sight of her made him stop for a moment.

She was gorgeous, he decided. She was his dream partner, with breasts that he had known in his fantasies a thousand times. Her legs were long, her waist narrow and, something that he found almost uncontainably arousing, she was shaved. Her eyes were bright as she waited for him to finish undressing, her tongue moving between her lips.

He at last got his shirt off and began to remove his shoes, overbalancing and falling back to sit on the bed. She moved around and knelt before him. He thought he would explode at the sight. She helped him off with his shoes, then his socks. They stood together, hand in hand as if they were dancing a courtship ritual, and before he could do anything himself she had taken down his trousers and his underwear. They fell on to the bed, she on top of him, her breasts bouncing and squashing into him. Kissing again she grabbed his prick and began to rub and squeeze it. He put his hand over first one breast, then the other. The nipples were large and hard and rubbery. He took one of them in his mouth while his hand massaged the other. She moaned encouragingly.

And all the time there was a small voice whispering,
I
cannot
believe
this
.

She took his hand and brought it down to the smoothness and the wetness between her legs. He found time to groan lustfully before resuming duties on her breast. She opened her legs and his fingers found their way inside.

"Kiss me," she said and he took his mouth from her nipple to find her face.

"No," she explained and pushed his head down her torso. He shifted position and did as he was told, so that his tongue moved down over her belly and onto her vulva. She tasted slightly of cinnamon, he thought. He began to gyrate his head so that his chin rubbed her clitoris and she, in turn, moved so that her head came between his legs and took his prick in her mouth.

*

He woke with a start and at once his head was full of the most intense guilt he had ever known. Images of the night rushed through, confused, jumbled and yet vivid, carrying emotional weight that crushed him. Memories of sexual acts that even now caused him to tumesce, tinged with the recalled passion and pleasure he had experienced only served now to deepen his remorse.

How could he have done this thing? He had betrayed Annette, betrayed his children, endangered the safety of his comfortable life. God, if she ever found out …

He was alone. Claire must have sneaked out not long ago, for he remembered that they had been busy quite late into the night. Busy in ways he had only ever dreamed of before.

The bed was a mess, most of the duvet hanging off the end, the undersheet rucked and twisted.
Rucked
by
your
fucking
. The thought sounded in his head and there was mockery in his conscience. He lay back and tried to stop panicking. There was no point in getting totally screwed up about it; it had happened and he had enjoyed it. The important thing now was to ensure that it became an enclosed, sealed event. He was in a different place and soon he would be in a different time; this would become the past and it need never live again.

At last he felt able to get up and face the day. It was already nearly nine, so he was going to be late for the day's programme, but he saw no point in rushing. A shower, a shave and a good breakfast. He would creep in at the back, spend the rest of the day absorbing academic knowledge as if nothing had happened, then drive home to Annette and the kids.

Yes, he felt that he could cope with that.

On his way down, he suddenly remembered Claire but this time not as a sexual partner but as someone who was going to be in the same room as him for much of the day. What would she say? Would she feel ashamed of what they had done? Perhaps she ought to …

He picked up a Sunday newspaper from reception, then walked into the dining room. As it was Sunday it was still quite full despite the relative lateness of the hour, although he was relieved to see that Claire was absent, presumably working. He chose a table in the corner, his back to the room and, having selected some cereal and ordered coffee, he started to read the paper.

It wasn't long before he was joined.

Alan. The name badge supplied a surname —
Rosenthal
.

"May I?"

Unfortunately he had already sat down with his bowl of figs and his glass of apple juice. He concentrated on his food while Hartmann stole worried glances at him, trying to assess the implications. Why should he choose to sit with Hartmann, now of all times? They hadn't spoken a single word to each other before now … before last night.

Yet his face was neutral. He seemed to be taking no interest at all in Hartmann. He was eating his figs and occasionally glancing up, over Hartmann's shoulder, at the other breakfasters. He had exceedingly pale eyes so that the pupils were accentuated, set in a face that was broad and deeply lined. He looked muscular under the expensive suit and he was over six feet tall. He looked, in short, as if he could look after himself and quite easily look after Hartmann, should Hartmann have trodden on private ground. Claire had said that he was homosexual, so perhaps this was a coincidence. True, he didn't look homosexual, but then it wasn't obligatory to mince and wear pink and yellow. Perhaps (and here Hartmann was undecided between alarm and relief) he was making a play for Hartmann.

After a while Rosenthal said, "One should always start breakfast with fruit." Then he continued with his meal. The tone had been conversational.

Hartmann began to relax. The waiter came and Rosenthal ordered tea and bacon and eggs. Then, his figs consigned to the food chain, he leaned back and looked directly into Hartmann's eyes. For perhaps the first two seconds, Hartmann assumed that this was a brief glance, of no more significance than catching someone's eye in a crowd on the station, but it continued. It continued until Hartmann, awash in a rising gush of embarrassment, confusion and fear, was about to ask what was going on.

And then, "Claire is a remarkable girl, isn't she?"

Hartmann understood. At least the uncertainty was gone. Rosenthal had discovered what had transpired and didn't like it … although his tone had not been particularly angry. Admiring would have been a more apposite description.

Before he could reply, Rosenthal went on, "I have had her several times myself, and I would suggest that she is the best fuck money can buy."

Hartmann unwound his mouth to protest at this outrageous denigration, then stopped as the implications of the words found their way into his understanding.

"Of course," the voice of sweetness and reason continued (as if discussing a vintage port or a Grand Cru), "she is not cheap. But she is undoubtedly good value for money."

A prostitute? He was saying that she was a prostitute?

His bewilderment lasted little time as he realized what was going on. Bullshit. A kind of petty revenge for Claire finding Hartmann attractive. This brought some pleasure which, alas, was also to prove ethereal and brief. He was just about to argue when Rosenthal fished in his inside breast pocket and produced a photograph. He looked at it, smiled appreciatively, turned it around and placed it face up on the table, just on Hartmann's side. It showed, in remarkable detail and clarity, Claire braced against the wall at an angle, her breasts hanging low, while Hartmann held on to her hips and thrust himself into her from behind. He felt his eyes widen involuntarily and his mouth desiccate as he looked down at it and then up at Rosenthal.

A smile met his gaze. "It is so refreshing and rare to meet a girl who is not only willing to have anal sex, but actually enjoys it. Would you not agree?"

He had in his hand more photographs and these he now dealt out before Hartmann's terrified, silent stare. Hartmann in Claire's mouth, Hartmann in Claire's vagina, Hartmann in Claire's …

All of them unmistakably containing Hartmann and unmistakably not containing Mrs Hartmann. Then, as if to prove that this was not some camera trickery, some magical illusion produced by jiggery-pokery (Hartmann was in no state to appreciate a pun), from inside his newspaper he produced a videocassette.

Hartmann could only stare mutely at it, then at Rosenthal, then back down at the video, now resting on the photographs like a paperweight. The waiter came with their breakfasts and Hartmann had to rush to take the small pile of artefacts before they should be spotted. Then, when they were alone again and Hartmann was looking at Rosenthal with a mute question, he was told airily, "Take them. There are plenty more."

"What do you want?" The enquiry came slowly and with a croak, as if his vocal cords were cracked by drought. He held on to his mementoes, comically unsure of what to do with them. Rosenthal was tucking into his bacon and eggs with some gusto.

"Me?" Rosenthal seemed surprised by the question. Then, appearing to consider, he suggested, "How about twenty-five thousand?"

Hartmann was beyond shock and beyond despair. He was looking now into complete destruction and all that was left within him was hysteria. "Twenty-five thousand?" he asked incredulously. "Twenty-five thousand? I haven't even got twenty-five hundred. You've caught the wrong man if that's what you want."

Rosenthal was already shaking his head. He put down his knife and fork and was wiping his mouth delicately on the tartan napkin. "You don't understand. I give you twenty-five thousand." He emphasized the pronouns with appropriate gestures with his knife.