Destroying Angel (14 page)

Feeling somewhat ignored, he crossed to his favourite armchair and slumped into it, sipping his beer and thinking about Susan and sex. When it came down to it, she was perfect; willing, wanton, and submissive. And the sex was good – very good. He felt a familiar tingle in his groin as he savoured the way her breasts strained against her T-shirt as she leant over the coffee-table.

Waiting for the Chinese to arrive, he started thinking about what he could do with her, once she had finished with the work. It was not going to be easy to top what he had done the day before, but one or two interesting ideas came to mind. Watching her perform with others came top of his list; making her do things to them, not because she particularly wanted to, but because it gave
him
pleasure.

The chime of the doorbell interrupted his fantasy. Susan was still engrossed, so he got up and fetched the meal. Even when he placed the delicious smelling food in front of her, she merely mumbled a thank you and reached for a prawn cracker.

‘Give it a rest, Susan,’ he chided. ‘You’ve got all evening to do that.’

She looked up. ‘Sorry, you’re right. Let’s eat, and then I’ll run it past you.’

‘Haven’t you had enough work for one day?’ he asked petulantly. ‘I thought we might have some fun.’

Susan smiled and stuck her tongue out, reaching for her plate as he took a draught of his beer.

When they had eaten she worked for another ten minutes or so, and then gathered the papers into a neat stack.

‘Right,’ she began purposefully. ‘Seven arsons, seven warehouses on seven different industrial estates. A pattern of sorts, but short of putting a team on every estate in London, not a very useful one. On the other hand, a number of factors separate the first four attacks from the later three. I take it you lot have noticed that?’

‘Er – well, no,’ Berner began. ‘Sure, the last three have all been by canals, but so was the first. Anyway, that’s surely just a question of sides of estates that face onto canals being unguarded. After all, in the second attack he used a railway in the same way.’

‘That’s not really accurate,’ Susan continued. ‘The first attack was in Enfield and the warehouse backed onto the New River. That’s small and not open to water traffic. The next three all have no road access, but easy enough foot access to the sides on which the attacks were made. True, the railway shields the one in East Ham nicely, but numbers three and four have a park with a narrow belt of scrubby woods and a broad belt of wasteland respectively. Five, six and seven, though, all have broad navigable canals by them. To throw a petrol bomb through a broken window, say twelve feet up and twenty feet away, is fairly easy, but to throw one across a canal as much as sixty feet wide and hit three times out of three, takes a bit of doing.’

‘So the guy’s a good throw,’ Berner suggested. ‘What do we do, arrest all known cricketers?’

‘Very funny. No, we assume the bombs were not in fact thrown from the far bank, but from a boat actually on the canal. All three are on navigable canals, but also on lonely stretches with no overlooking roads. It would be simple, but involves a major discrepancy from the psychological profile DI Gage had done. Where is it?’

Berner watched as Susan rummaged for the sheet and scanned it quickly before continuing. ‘…inadequate… attention-seeking… ah, here we are. “Suffering from a deprivation of regular mental stimuli” – that’s bored, to you and me. Leaving the jargon aside, the Fire Ghost seems to be some bored kid who wants to feel he’s something special, or maybe look big in the eyes of his mates. Apparently, he might well be expected to have some pseudo-political justification for his acts, probably involving class warfare. What he isn’t very likely to have is a riverboat.’

‘That’s a bit speculative,’ Berner objected.

‘Nonsense,’ Susan said. ‘We haven’t many hard facts, so I’m building a theory. I’ll test it, and if it fails, I’ll build another. Eventually one will work. You’ve got to admit it’s a better technique than waiting for the next blaze and hoping Fire Ghost will make a mistake. He uses a simple formula. As long as he sticks to it he’s unlikely to be caught, unless enormous resources are devoted to the problem. Anyway, according to my theory we have Fire Ghost and an imitator. The imitator is well-off, presumably has a motive, and I think I know who it is.’

‘Annabella de Vergy, presumably,’ Berner said, ‘but your reasoning is circular. You’re after de Vergy and so you’ve constructed your theory to fit her. It won’t wash, let alone stand up in court.’

‘I don’t expect it to,’ Susan replied, ‘and, if you want the truth, I’d rather Annabella de Vergy was innocent. It’s Philip Ruddock I’m hoping is the bad apple, but unless he has sole charge of the buying at de Vergy Fine Wines, I’m afraid Annabella is at least an accessory.’

‘You’re away with the fairies,’ Berner observed as he reached for his beer, the fifth in a line of bottles that was slowly building across the table.

‘Thanks for your confidence,’ Susan said indignantly. ‘All I can say is that, so far, none of the facts run in contradiction to my theory, although I admit I do need a lot more before reaching any definite conclusions. Oh, and another thing: Dr Potheroe, Gage’s pet psychologist, points out that the spacing of the first four fires suggests that each fire creates a satiation of Fire Ghost’s need to burn things followed by a period of increasing need before setting another fire. He says the gaps fall with a five percent margin of error when compared with averages determined by some other psychologist. The last three have been much more closely spaced.’

‘It’s all too theoretical for me,’ Berner insisted. ‘But I’ll tell old man Gage, if you don’t mind me pinching your ideas. At least he’ll think I’m keen. He’s a bit of a plodder, so don’t expect him to take much notice.’

‘I don’t. And you can pinch as many of my ideas as you like. That’s me done, anyway. Can I have another beer?’

‘Sure.’ He got up and went out to the kitchen. ‘You’re lucky, you know,’ he called back, ‘I was going to take you out to a car park that’s got a bit of a reputation, but I reckon I’ve had a beer too many.’

Susan was a little puzzled. ‘A car park with a reputation?’

‘Voyeurs.’

Susan’s stomach lurched with excitement at the thought. ‘I – um… I’ve only had one beer,’ she called. ‘I could drive.’

Berner’s hand hovered in the fridge over a bottle as he looked back at her from the kitchen. Was there nothing she wouldn’t get off on?

Susan lay back in the seat of Paul Berner’s BMW, shivering with pleasure and the exquisite shame of public exposure. Her top was up over her breasts, her skirt rucked up around her waist while Berner kissed the sensitive skin of her tummy and worked his fingers against her pussy through her knickers. Twice faces had peered in through the windscreen, one owlish and bespectacled, the other lean with staring eyes. Their attention certainly had the intended effect on her, but she was glad of Berner’s protective presence. The sheer lust written on both men’s faces had been frightening.

He kissed her for a while, then transferred his attentions to her nipples as his hand moved down the front of her panties to find the wet flesh of her pussy. A finger slid inside her, his palm rubbing her mound. As her excitement rose, the idea of being made a public exhibit became more appealing. When she’d accepted Berner’s suggestion, she’d known that she would enjoy it in the end, but that hadn’t made the shame and embarrassment of being seen any less – nor any less exciting.

Berner’s hand had left her pussy and was tugging at her panties. Susan sighed as she lifted her bottom off the seat to let him pull them down. She looked down. The interior light illuminated her pussy, a little pink flesh showing as her panties were taken down to her ankles and her knees fell apart. Berner edged himself back a little, pushing Susan hard against the door. His head was between her open thighs, kissing and licking at the soft skin. Slowly, his kisses moved towards her pussy. Susan closed her eyes in ecstasy and cupped her breasts and stroked her aching nipples. He was kissing her pubic mound, the stubble of her hair tickling her into a state of distraction. Finally, he started to kiss her pussy, awkward in the confined space. His tongue found her clit and began to flick against it, making her moan.

‘Oh Paul… that’s nice,’ she sighed.

She opened her eyes, wondering if they were being watched. Sure enough, the owl-faced man was standing a little way away, his face a mask of intense lust, one hand down his trousers, masturbating himself shamelessly. He was about fifty and fat, his clothes suggesting not just wealth but extravagance.

‘We – we’re being watched, Paul,’ she whispered between gasps. ‘S-some sad fat man with his hand down – uh – his trousers.’

To her horror, he reached across her and began to wind the window down.

‘P-Paul!’ she squeaked.

‘Offer to toss him off,’ Berner mumbled from between her juicy thighs.

‘I – I’m not sure, I…’ Susan faltered, as her last shreds of reserve began to melt away.

Berner chuckled and put his lips back to her pussy. Susan moaned as his tongue once more found her clit. The window was down, the owlish man looking right at her, hopeful yet distrusting. Susan looked back, eyes wide, mouth a little open, trying to pluck up the courage to speak to him. Berner began to explore her bottom. He stroked the cheeks, burrowing between them, a finger finding her anus and popping just inside. Susan whimpered with delight, feeling her orgasm simmering in the pit of her stomach.

‘S-slow down, Paul…’ she gasped. ‘Perhaps we shu-should st-stop—’

The owlish man shuffled closer. His hand jerked inside his trousers. Suddenly Susan really wanted to plunge her own hand down there; to grip the evidence of his desire for her.

‘Oh, God… I’m going to do it,’ she gasped, and reached out into the cool night air. The man ducked back a little like a cautious animal. The tongue between her legs flicked expertly over her clit and she groaned and clutched at the air, desperate now to curl her fingers around the stranger’s erect cock.

He hesitated and watched her warily, evidently not convinced of her good intentions.

‘Come here,’ she urged huskily, feeling deliciously dirty. ‘You’ll – uh – you’ll love what I can do for you.’

The man licked his lips, and then started to unbutton his trousers as he sidled closer again. They gaped, and his white underpants bulged out into the night. Susan stroked the bulge, and shivered at the realisation of what she was doing. It felt large and warm beneath her exploring fingertips. She felt her pussy open to admit Berner’s thumb, and his finger moving in her bottom, rubbing the membrane between rectum and vagina. His tongue worried her clit again, and suddenly it was just too much. Nothing mattered but extracting all the pleasure she could.

Tugging aside the slavering stranger’s underpants, she pulled him sharply until he was flat up against the car and she could stuff his monstrous cock into her ravenous mouth.

She was shocked by his size, but there was no going back now. He wheezed as she sucked his helmet and masturbated his shaft. Berner’s fingers worked incessantly inside her, his tongue lapping at her clit. She was already coming as the stranger jerked and her mouth filled. She swallowed and revelled in the lasciviousness of her behaviour. He pulled out, and his cock twitched just inches from her spellbound face. It glistened in the dim light, coated in his own seed and her saliva.

The sight made her hungry for more. She licked at it eagerly, and then gobbled him back into her mouth, sucking desperately with stretched lips as she reached her climax with pussy, anus, and mouth all full at once.

The man’s cock was already shrinking as he finally pulled away from her. Susan still felt dirty and submissive, despite her recent orgasm. She knew Berner would still want to fuck her, and hoped he would do it as publicly as he could. He sat up as the stranger slithered back into the shadows, forgotten.

‘Fuck me, Paul,’ Susan whispered. ‘Over the bonnet if you want to. I don’t mind.’

Berner grinned as he turned the key in the ignition. ‘I don’t think that would be too wise for a man in my position. Let’s get back to the flat, pronto.’

Paulette waited in the Cave Co-Operative de Choray. She had deliberately turned up early, in the hope of finding some evidence to support the idea that activities at the co-op were fraudulent.

This was proving no easy task. Even from a quick glance, it was clear that specialist knowledge would be needed to know what was and what was not legitimate practice in a winery. It was also highly unlikely that anything incriminating would simply be left lying around, especially when casual visitors might see into the main building – or inspectors visit, for that matter.

There was also the slightly galling notion that the workers evidently felt entirely secure about her being in the winery. They treated her with a familiarity that bordered on insolence, and she suspected that if it hadn’t been for her association with Christian Charrier, then the incomprehensible but clearly rude remarks and the occasional pat of her bottom would have been even less restrained.

However, she felt she had made one or two observations that suggested everything was not entirely above board. Firstly, there was the fact that they produced only four wines and yet had sixteen tanks, each annotated with a distinct legend written with chalk on tablets of slate. Even allowing for their wines from the south and capacity for over-production, sixteen tanks seemed rather a lot.

Secondly, there were the annotations themselves. Each gave a range of data, most of which was incomprehensible to her. But one part wasn’t. Each slate included a figure followed by a dash and the legend ‘g/l H
2
SO4’. Paulette recognised the formula as that for sulphuric acid, which, she was certain, was not a naturally occurring constituent of wine. Could they be adding it for some reason? If they were, then she had no idea why, but the idea did fit with the theory that the co-op’s wines were adulterated in some manner.

‘Ah, Paulette, my little one.’ Charrier’s oily tones made her start guiltily. ‘You are eager, I see. I trust my colleagues have kept you entertained?’

Paulette nodded, certain that if she were to complain to Charrier about having her bottom pinched, he would only laugh.

‘Today,’ he continued, ‘I will show you a French vineyard, to me the most beautiful sight on Earth. We will inspect my own properties and then take a picnic in a charming forest… no, wood?’

‘Copse, maybe?’ Paulette suggested.

‘Perhaps,’ Charrier continued. ‘You English have six words for everything. What matters is that it is mine and we will be quite alone. We will stop in the village for bread and perhaps a local cheese. But first, the most important thing.’

He turned and signalled to one of the workers, a pot-bellied man who had been far too familiar towards Paulette. ‘François, a bottle from the cellar – the ’89.’ He turned back to Paulette and said, ‘This is not something we export, but a reserve intended for ourselves. Generally the local wines take little time to mature, but myself and two others own parcels of Côt, a magnificent red grape that was once the pride of Bordeaux as well as the Loire.’

‘How many special wines do you make?’ Paulette asked.

‘Just this, and a little Pinot Noir,’ he answered. ‘Also a sweet Chenin, like the wines of Vouvray, but only in the hottest of years. This year, I think, maybe we will, but it is impossible to be sure until the vintage.’

Paulette glanced around again, now aware of what at least some of the extra tanks were for. It was certainly impossible to draw any conclusions without greater knowledge.

François returned with a bottle, which Charrier took with exaggerated delicacy. Pausing only to take a cold bottle of white wine from the refrigerator in the tasting room, he showed her out of the co-op; Paulette caught several remarks from behind her and a knowing leer from François as they left.

After a brief stop in Choray, they drove east. Christian soon pulled off the road onto a dirt track, and stopped the car in the shade of a grove of poplars. On her way down to the Loire, Paulette had expected a more or less unbroken monoculture of vineyard, an image she had formed from pictures of Southern France and the Central Valley in California. The Touraine was very different. Patches of vine were frequent, but interspersed with numerous woods and copses. There were also other crops, notably sunflowers. Pasture, numerous ponds, and untended land all combined to produce a pastoral scene of far greater beauty than she had expected.

Charrier had stopped by one of the larger expanses of vines, beyond which an oak wood shimmered in the heat haze. He got out of the car. Drawing a deep lungful of air, he waved his hand expansively at the landscape.

‘This,’ he said with evident pride, ‘is les Ormeaux; seven hectares of Sauvignon and Chenin. The vineyard was named for a group of elms that stood at the far end, now sadly gone. The grapes, as you see, are ripe. In some days, the vintage will begin.’ Paulette followed his finger to where he was indicating bunches of greenish-yellow grapes among the foliage of the vines.

Charrier took the basket in which he had packed the wine and food from the car, and Paulette followed him along the edge of the vineyard. He occasionally pointed out some feature or recounted a tale. He made no mention at all of what they had done the day before.

She accepted this at face value, keen to sample more of Charrier’s ‘penitence’, but more than a little uncertain about the wisdom of doing so. Bearing in mind his curious predilection for punishment as repentance for showing herself off, she had deliberately chosen a long white dress that morning. Belted at the waist, it showed so little flesh as to be positively demure, yet she knew full well that even a weak light would show her silhouette through the material. While less obvious than her cut-down shorts and stripy top, it seemed unlikely that Charrier would fail to be tempted.

At the end of the field the vines gave way to smaller bushes with grey-brown wood and more rounded leaves. Peering closely, Paulette saw that they were blackcurrant bushes, the fruit already ripe.

‘Cassis,’ Charrier explained, noting her interest. ‘Blackcurrants, in English. I make a cordial for drinking at home. A few drops of cassis in white wine or, better, sparkling wine, makes an excellent aperitif.’

‘Kir,’ Paulette responded, counting the bushes; they seemed very numerous for a drink used only a few drops at a time for home consumption.

‘Yes, kir,’ Charrier agreed. ‘I see you know it. Anyway, here we have our picnic spot. Perfect, is it not?’

He had stepped between the bushes, and Paulette found that the ground sloped suddenly away and then levelled out into a clearing. Thick oaks surrounded the space on all sides, and a carpet of lush grass covered the wood floor. Dappled sunlight made patterns on the grass, and large yellow butterflies flitted in the beams.

‘Beautiful,’ Paulette admitted. ‘You’re lucky to own all this land.’ Charrier shrugged.

As she walked down into the shallow bowl, she found herself entirely cut off from sight. Here, she thought, would be a wonderful place for sex. She could strip, lie naked in the grass, and indulge herself however she pleased with little risk of being caught. She smiled at her companion, wondering if he had had the same thought when deciding to come to the glade. Charrier smiled back, a touch of wickedness in his look confirming Paulette’s suspicions.

They spread out the picnic, making themselves comfortable on the soft grass and sipping glasses of white wine as they talked. Paulette drank without restraint, indifferent to how tiddly she became. Physically, Christian Charrier was unappealing, but mentally he had what was effectively a direct line to her clitoris: the desire to punish her. Had he been a foot taller and reasonably heavily built, he would have been perfect. As it was, she knew that a bottle of wine would quickly dispel any misgivings she might have.

He opened the red wine, and poured the top inch out to let it breathe while he explained how futile merely pulling the cork was. He seemed to view this error as an English habit, an idea that amused Paulette when she thought of the obsessive care Alan Sowerby and people like him took with bottles of fine wine. Thinking of Sowerby brought her somewhat down to earth. It was not impossible that Charrier, the man who was currently seducing her with wine and flattery, had murdered Sowerby in a particularly horrible way. She shivered, glancing at his face. It was quite relaxed, the over-large nose projecting up at an angle, the sallow cheeks creased with a grin as he recounted a story about some Belgian visitors to the co-op.

‘Have some bread and pâté,’ Charrier suggested, the very normalcy of his remark breaking the rather grim sensation that had been creeping upon her.

She accepted the piece he was holding out. Watching him pour the red wine, she took a bite of the bread, checking for mushrooms in the pâté with her tongue, despite herself. It was definitely okay, but the process of checking drew a strange look from Charrier.

‘Don’t you like it?’ he asked, sounding hurt.

‘No, no, it’s very good,’ Paulette stammered. ‘What’s in it?’

‘Oh, goose livers, duck livers, pheasant livers, herbs, a little pepper. It’s locally made. So is the cheese.’

‘Mmm, delicious,’ Paulette assured him. ‘Could you pass my wine?’

It was delicious, and completely different from the wines she had tasted the day before: rich, smooth, and spicy, with flavours of smoke and aromatic wood.

‘Excellent,’ she announced. ‘Why don’t you sell this? I’ve never tasted anything like it.’

Charrier laughed before answering. ‘In a good year, on the best land, with a skilled vigneron, it is possible to make wine like this. Even then it costs two, maybe more, times as much to make as the ordinary wine. This is not Champagne, where fools will pay five times the worth of a wine because of its name. No, it is not worth our while to sell it. It is better to keep it to drink ourselves and use it to inflame the passions of dusky maidens from across the seas, no?’

‘I thought you found me a temptation,’ Paulette laughed, ‘a temptation who needed punishment for flaunting herself?’

‘Very true,’ he replied, ‘as is true of all women. To tempt with your bodies is your nature, to be beaten is a natural consequence of your womanhood.’

‘Do I get another belting, then?’ Paulette giggled, keen not to be drawn into a discussion of Charrier’s bizarre philosophy.

‘You are truly extraordinary,’ Charrier replied. ‘So few are the women who know their darker desires, but you… you know, and you have no shame.’

Paulette shrugged. She had never understood why sex should be thought of as shameful. A smacked bottom gave her physical pleasure, and if her bottom was smacked as punishment, a new dimension was added to that pleasure. That was the way she felt; a harmless sexual urge. Guilt was for when you hurt someone.

‘So you truly want another taste of my belt?’ Charrier continued.

Paulette nodded, remembering the way he had beaten her, and anticipating more. Her lips felt suddenly dry, so she took a large mouthful of wine. She watched as he stood and looked down at her with a strange mixture of lust and contempt. Her lower lip trembled, and her hands moved automatically to the cord that held her dress tight at the waist.

‘I’m naked underneath,’ she told him softly.

‘I know,’ he replied. ‘Do you think I have not noticed? Your breasts and legs show against the light and it is obvious that you have no panties on. Well, you want to tempt, now you must show it all. Take your dress off.’

Paulette obeyed, rising to her knees to pulled the dress up around her waist, slipping the cord loose and pulling it up over her head. Naked except for her shoes, she knelt in front of him, angled her head back, and parted her knees to present her breasts and sex openly. He scrutinised her body; the tell-tale swell at his crotch indicating his excitement.

‘Whore,’ he said at last. ‘Get up.’

She rose, expecting to be told to position herself for punishment.

‘Finish your wine,’ he ordered, instead.

She gulped it down, spilling it in her eagerness, a deep red rivulet meandering down her chin and throat.

‘I am going to whip you,’ Charrier continued, ‘but not with my belt, and not here. Follow that path…’ he pointed. ‘Do you know what a birch tree looks like?’

Paulette nodded, at once realising what he had in store for her. Susan had told her what it felt like to be made to pick birch twigs for use on her own bottom. Now Paulette was to have to do the same.

‘Good. You will pick the twigs I tell you to and then, when there are sufficient, I will whip you with them. Come.’

She took the path indicated. Charrier occasionally pointed to a choice birch twig, which she would snap off. The process was every bit as forceful as Susan had described it, her anticipation of her coming beating rising with each twig added to the bundle and the knowledge of how much it would hurt. The fact that she was not only naked but moving further and further away from her clothes only added to the sensation. Charrier maintained a stern aloofness, but failed to conceal his rising excitement.

‘I am not without mercy,’ he remarked as he pointed to a section of twig. ‘As your derrière still bears the marks of my belt from yesterday, that is why I will use the birch. As you will discover, it produces a very different sensation.’

He laughed, a cruel, mocking sound that did nothing to make Paulette believe that lessening the pain of her punishment was at all important to him. She picked the twig he had indicated and added it to her bundle, now a spray of leafy birch at least as broad as her bottom.