Murder... Now and Then (46 page)

Max still looked bewildered. ‘Are you sure she knows it's him?' he asked. ‘I mean – if he wasn't legit – he hasn't changed his name, or something?'

‘Of course she knows,' Anna said. ‘ I told her. Before the takeover was made public – Victor sent me to tell her that it was him, to ask her to see her mother. At least she did that. Once. But I don't know what else the man is supposed to do, Max – he moved his entire operation here because of her! And she won't give an inch.'

‘No,' said Max. ‘I know what she's like. She's got a – a horror, I suppose – of sex. She always has had. I can imagine her jumping to that conclusion, when her mother had the stroke. And it wouldn't help if she walked in on him and a woman. But she must realize now, surely, that—'

Anna wasn't listening. ‘You mean you and she don't …'

‘No,' he said. ‘We never have. That's why I don't have to explain where I've been.'

Anna was appalled at the idea of a man like Max finding himself in such a predicament. Bloody Catherine. She had messed up more people's lives than Victor's.

Max lay back, arms outstretched. ‘And I'm with you now,' he said. ‘So let's not waste it.' Anna still sat as she had, elbows on his knees, hands loosely

clasped in front of her. She smiled at Max, and hoped to God she

could trust him.
Because now she really had something to worry about.

Catherine took things from the wardrobe, stuffing them into a suitcase. She didn't know what she was taking, she was simply packing. That's what you did when you were running away. This time there was no money to take from the safe. This time there was no safe, because Max wouldn't know what to put in one, thank God. There was no one in the world like Victor Holyoak, but Max was as unlike as it was possible to be.

She had a joint account with Max, but it wouldn't be fair to use that. She would just have to get a job. Unlike Valerie, she could at least do that; she had worked for Max, and at Driver's for a little while. She could type – she could file. She looked round the bedroom; Max had bought this house before they were married, and this room had seen a lot of painful tears, a lot of laughter, and a great deal of love.

No one could have been kinder than Max, more understanding. And she had tried. She had gone to all the people that Max had asked her to see. All she had got out of it was the trick of deep breathing at moments of panic. She still couldn't let poor Max touch her. And then he'd tried all sorts of things himself; he had been so patient, so good. She had told him that he could have other women, but for a long time no one really wanted to know him. Then that had passed, and Max had got his hobby back She smiled. She was glad about that.

Then the smile went as she thought of the nightmares the bedroom had witnessed, when Max would shout his innocence, and cry in his sleep. She could have stopped that. It was way, way too late by the time the nightmares started for her to tell him what she had done. And tomorrow he would find out. But she wouldn't be there, because she was running away again. She closed the suitcase, and carried it downstairs, just as someone came to the door.

She put it down behind the door, and opened it, expecting Zelda, come to tell her that she must give Max moral support tomorrow.

‘Hello, Catherine,' he said, walking in, and closing the door. He looked at the suitcase. ‘Running away again?' he asked.

‘It's got nothing to do with you!'

‘Oh, but it has,' he said. ‘You're frightened of what your husband's going to say when he sees me.' He smiled. ‘I told you the solution to that,' he said. ‘Don't come – then you won't have to see him realize what you did to him. Of course you could tell him, but that is something that I'm sure you'll put off until it's too late.'

‘You said you wouldn't come here again,' Catherine persisted. The only thing that Victor Holyoak had principles about was keeping his word, and that was just another aspect of his obsessiveness. But you could rely on it, she had thought.

‘Things have changed,' he said. ‘So you can unpack the suitcase, Catherine.'

She shook her head.

‘I think you will,' he said. ‘ When you hear what I have to say.'

‘Everything's fixed. He'll be there at about ten thirty in the morning, he hopes, but he's got two ports of call before that, and things often get very bogged down, so don't think he's let you down if he's late.'

Charles smiled weakly at the telephone. ‘Thanks, Mark,' he said. ‘It was good of you.'

‘He's delighted to do it. Not too many people building bigger factories these days. And you'll have the press pack, and the TV, so your friend Holyoak should be pleased.'

‘Good.'

‘Sorry I can't be there – it would be nice to see you and Geraldine again.' A pause, during which Charles was supposed to issue an invitation, but didn't. ‘It's been too long,' he said. ‘ In fact – I don't believe we've seen each other since I stood for Stansfield.'

‘No,' said Charles. ‘I don't believe we have.'

‘We must make a date soon. ‘Bye.'

Charles put the receiver on the rest, and looked round his sitting room. It was a long, low room, with exposed beams painted black, and the original fireplace, a huge stone-built affair that had once had seats right inside it for the farmhands to get warm in winter. He had put shelves in; they had taken out the old grate and replaced it with a gas fire that looked like a real fire. It hadn't looked like this when they had bought it; the clinic had paid for the modernization of the interior, and the restoration of the exterior. Charles would really have liked to add on a wing, but they had told him he couldn't. He had had to fight to build the clinic; in the end they had agreed, providing it was made of the same materials.

Gerry didn't really approve of private clinics, but then she had never grown out of sixties optimism about the way of the world, when everyone was going to be equal: black, white, upper class, working class. Everyone was going to heaven on pot and free love with flowers in their hair. He had never liked all that. Gerry had got him to take a puff of a joint once, and he'd expected the Drugs Squad to come bursting in to ruin his career before he'd even qualified.

He had been shocked, the first time she had suggested that they went away for the weekend together, once he'd realized what she meant. She had laughed at him. The pill had revolutionized all that, she had said. She needn't have bothered with the pill, as things had turned out.

She would have been better off with Max, really. Someone who shared her belief in socialism, who was a believer in free love if ever there was one, who could probably have given her children, though he had never wanted any himself. But Max had been lumbered with Valerie, and Gerry, for some reason, loved him. He wasn't sure why; he had never been sure why. Charles wasn't at all sure that he loved her; she had been the only girl he'd ever felt at ease with, that was all.

But she was his wife, and he had given her everything that could be expected of him. Except a baby. He had done everything in his power to get their standard of living to the heights that it had reached, and keep it there, and there were still further heights to scale. Victor Holyoak was a good person to know; he might never have met him if it hadn't been for the clinic. He was a fitness fanatic; he had started using the gym at the clinic as soon as he had heard about it. He overdid it, in Charles's opinion. He was almost obsessed with keeping fit.

But he had been as good as his word, and Max had been confirmed as general manager the day that Charles had confirmed that the minister would do the opening ceremony. There might be other favours Charles could do him that would be repaid as promptly.

This one had been done at a price; Charles hadn't really wanted to renew his acquaintance with Mark. That election held terrible memories, and all he had ever wanted to do was to forget it. Week after week of the police taking Max in for questioning, even having to answer questions himself more than once. Gerry looking ill for months, Zelda becoming totally hostile to Max, because she believed Max had murdered Valerie, whatever she said. Horrible days, and making the arrangements with Mark had brought them all back.

And tomorrow, they would all be there. Him, Gerry, Max, Zelda … all together in one room for the first time since the dinner party. With Catherine instead of Valerie. It was going to be very difficult for everyone.

But at least Max had a proper job at last, he thought, snapping out of his brown study as he heard the surgery door close. Gerry had finished her late appointment with the colonel who would do well to study Charles's lifestyle book.

She came in, and took off her white coat, throwing it down on the sofa. ‘There's nothing wrong with the old fool,' she said.

‘Would you like a drink?' Charles asked.

‘No. I'd love a cup of coffee – oh, that reminds me. I had Zelda over earlier. Wanting to know why Catherine is refusing to go to the opening tomorrow.' She looked at him. ‘ Do you know anything about that?' she asked.

No. It was news to him. ‘I don't think Max knows, which is more to the point,' Charles said. ‘I'm sure he'd much rather she was there.'

‘Well, Zelda thinks it has to do with Max being over friendly with this Anna Worthing woman,' she said, going out into the hall, and down to the kitchen.

‘Nonsense!' said Charles. ‘Zelda's imagining things. Max and Catherine are as happy as any couple I know. If she doesn't want to go … maybe she isn't feeling well, or something.'

‘For a doctor, you're very coy about menstruation,' Gerry shouted back down the hall to him. ‘And she isn't that bad with it, anyway.'

Charles shrugged and poured himself a drink.

Holyoak looked at his watch. ‘I'll go now,' he said, looking at his stepdaughter, who stared back, the defiance gone. ‘I'm sure you would rather your husband didn't find me here when he gets back from his whoring.'

She didn't speak.

‘You really should bave told him, Catherine. You can't blame him if he's angry.'

Still nothing.

‘You always did leave everything until the last minute, didn't you? It isn't a good idea.'

Her eyes were wide with resentment now that she knew she had no way out this time. She should be grateful; he had been prepared to accommodate certain conditions, when she was in no position to impose them. But she had never been grateful.

Anna would be. He had intended terminating her employment, but she had elicited information that he would otherwise not have had, and he still had a use for her after all. He would tell her that, except that he would let her think it was a reprieve, rather than a stay of execution, or she would have no incentive to do what he required of her. And he would tell the little whore what he thought of her. She liked to imagine that his opinion of her had altered over the years, but it never had, and he would make certain that she understood that.

Once he had no more need of her, that little episode with Scott that he had just witnessed would seal her fate. She knew the terms of their bargain; she had brought it on herself.

And his stepdaughter knew the terms of their bargain. ‘A bargain is a bargain, Catherine,' he said ‘I'm glad you didn't let me down after all.'

He left, and drove to the factory, parking at the rear of the building, getting security to let him in to the building, where he went up to his office, and sat at his desk. He took out his keyring, and unlocked the door to the cupboard behind his head, where a tape silently recorded the images on the screen. He had no desire to watch their couplings; he just wanted to listen to what they had to say to one another.

He picked up the headphones, and turned away from the scene that the overhead camera was watching.

Above her head Max could see the superfine mesh that subdued the hidden lighting, and lent her glowing body a soft golden sheen. He always wanted light; he liked to see his partner. Her upper lip was touched with perspiration as she held her head back, eyes closed, quite still.

Then she looked down at him, frowning slightly. ‘How can someone like you put up with a sexless marriage?' she asked. ‘Didn't you find out what she was like before you married her?'

Max smiled again. Even Anna couldn't see that sex was simply a matter of animal instinct improved by human ingenuity – which Anna possessed in abundance – and nothing whatever to do with love.

‘No,' he said. ‘I wanted her to feel she could change her mind right up until the last minute. She was very young.'

‘What did you do when you found out?' she asked.

‘Persuaded her to see psychiatrists and psychologists – we even found a sex therapist. Nothing worked. She's never let me near her.'

‘What – nothing?'

‘Nothing,' he said.

Anna stripped the bed as he showered and dressed, and showered and dressed herself as he shoved the sheets into the machine, and set it going. Then they would make up the bed together. It was routine now, and even that was good, with the desire gone, for the moment, to jump between the sheets they were spreading on the bed; he liked the company of women, with or without physical contact. Anna couldn't understand.

‘Separate rooms, all that?' she asked.

‘Same room, separate beds,' he said.

Her eyes widened. ‘But how can someone like you bear that?' she asked.

‘Because I've got someone like you,' he said. He tucked in the sheet and straightened up. ‘I love her, Anna. I love her very much – she's the only woman I've ever loved. And nothing would please me more than to make love to her, but I can live without it, and I don't want to live without her.'

She looked at him, her head to one side. ‘You're a really nice man, aren't you?' she said. ‘I don't believe I've ever met one before.'