The Ladykiller (51 page)

Patrick took the corkscrew Kate handed to him, and opened the bottle of wine. He poured them all a glass. Evelyn took hers, and after a large gulp said, ‘It must have been terrible for you today, Patrick. You just sit yourself down and get something hot inside you. Food always makes people feel better.’

Patrick looked down at his shoes.

Kate was making a salad. As she washed the vegetables, Evelyn kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’m off then, Katie. Goodbye, Patrick, I’ll probably see you later.’

‘Let me run you round to Doris’s, Mum.’

Evelyn held up her hand. ‘I’m quite capable of going by shanks’s pony, Kate. You get your food down you while it’s hot.’

Patrick smiled at her and watched her putting on her coat, scarf, woollen hat and thermal boots. She had them all laid out in the front room. Giving them both another wave she left the house, a large leather bag clutched to her chest.

‘She’s a lovely woman, Kate, you’re lucky to have her.’

‘Don’t I know it! Why don’t you put some of the dishes on the breakfast bar, this salad’s nearly ready.’

Patrick set about helping. As they worked they chatted amiably about little things. The distraction of doing mundane everyday tasks took the edge off his misery. It had not occurred to him until today that he had not really grieved for his child because he had not really believed she was dead. It was only the lowering of her coffin into the earth that had brought it home to him. Finally and irrevocably.

Kate placed the garlic bread and salad on the laden surface and sat opposite him.

Patrick picked up his wine glass and held it in the air. ‘To us?’ It was more a question than a statement.

Kate picked up her own glass and touched it against his. ‘To Mandy, may she rest in peace.’

‘I’ll drink to that.’ Patrick sipped his wine, and then putting down his glass began to help himself from the dishes. He did not feel particularly hungry, the day had taken away any appetite he had. In fact, if he had not been going to see Kate, he would have got blind drunk.

‘This is the first time I’ve eaten Greek salad with spaghetti bolognese, Kate.’

He shovelled a mouthful of salad in as he spoke.

‘I know. But they complement each other. I think so anyway, and as we’re in my house we’ll eat as I think fit.’

The ice was melted completely now, and they chatted together as they ate. Nothing important or heavyweight, that type of thing could wait for the time being. Tonight was an interval. It was to be the night when Patrick’s trouble and Kate’s involvement in that trouble could be set aside. They were a couple of friends comforting each other.

Patrick ate. He watched as Kate sucked in a piece of spaghetti, and he smiled. He knew that when the pain was gone, he would always associate Kate with his Mandy. He would always think of them together, first Mandy and then Kate. She was the one good thing that had come out of it all. He knew that if he had been left alone tonight he would have cracked. He needed company, but the company of someone he cared about, not a casual sexual encounter. If he had gone for that he would have felt he had cheapened his daughter’s life. Trying to forget her and come to terms with her burial with a stranger, would have been like an insult.

After the meal, when they had taken the remainder of the wine into the lounge, their lovemaking began quietly. Kate allowed her clothes to be removed and lay on the floor with a tapestry cushion beneath her head, watching Patrick undress.

The thrill of watching him started as a heat, deep in her loins, and gradually engulfed her whole body. She saw that he was already aroused and was glad. She wanted no foreplay tonight. She wanted something hard, and sweet, and fast.

When Patrick collapsed on top of her ten minutes later, she felt the tension slipping out of both of them and held him to her breast, stroking his hair, while their heartbeats gradually returned to normal.

‘Oh, Kate, I needed that.’

She kissed him on the mouth, gently at first and then hard, pushing her tongue between his lips.

‘I know that, Pat. I’m glad you came to me.’

Kissing her breasts, he rolled from her and lit them both a cigarette. He lay back on the floor beside her and placed a large glass ashtray on her stomach.

‘Oh, you! That’s cold.’

Patrick smiled and lay back, putting one arm under his head. ‘I ain’t lain on a floor like this for years, have you?’

‘Oh, we do this all the time at the station. You should see us some days in the canteen!’

Patrick laughed softly.

‘You’re crazy sometimes.’

‘It’s all this screwing.’

He glanced at her profile.

‘I don’t call what we do “screwing”, Kate. I call it making love. There’s a difference, you know.’

She turned her face slightly and looked into his eyes. ‘You’re very romantic, Patrick. What’s brought all this on?’

But she knew what had brought it on, they both did. Losing his child had made him realise that happiness was there for the taking, and when you took it you had to grab it with both hands tightly, because you never knew when it was going to be taken away again.

Taking her cigarette he placed it in the ashtray with his own and put this on the hearth. He pulled her into his arms.

‘I love you, Kate. I know we haven’t known each other that long, but admit it - admit you feel the bond between us?’

Kate searched his eyes. All she could see was honesty and caring. She felt an absurd lump in her throat.

‘Tell me you love me, Katie, make me happy.’ It was a plea. Patrick needed words of love from her tonight; he needed to resolve the feelings that had been gradually welling up inside him since he’d first laid eyes on her. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if he had met her under any other circumstances he would still have wanted her. It wasn’t the fact that she had been there from the first, at the worst time of his life, that attracted him to her. It was the attraction of two kindred spirits they had here, heightened by the heartbreak each had experienced.

Kate was telling herself that it was the burial of his daughter that had brought all this on, that he was unhappy and needed someone, but inside her a little voice was whispering: ‘He means it. It’s written in his eyes.’

She knew that if she voiced what she had felt in her heart since the first time she saw him, there would be no going back. He was a repoman, a violent repoman. He had fingers in more than enough dubious enterprises. But for all that, for all she knew about him, real and imagined, she wanted him.

He could drag her down with him in an instant. Their association would jeopardise everything she had worked for and held dear. But even knowing this, she still wanted him. She had never wanted anyone so much in all her life.

‘I love you, Patrick. I think.’

Her voice was low and husky, and he laughed.

‘Only think? Well, I suppose that will have to do for the time being.’

Kate ran her fingers through his thick hair and traced the contours of his face with her fingertips, gradually travelling down, over his body and along his back muscles, to his rounded behind. He even felt strong. His skin felt warm and comforting on top of hers. He covered her naturally, as if he had been made specially to fit into the contours of her body. And as they kissed the shrill jangling of the phone broke their mood.

Kate pulled herself from the floor and padded out to the hall, dragging her blouse on as she went.

Patrick lay on the carpet and lit himself another cigarette. He felt at peace with himself, something he had not thought possible on this day of all days.

Kate came back into the lounge and sat beside him, her dark nipples showing through the thin silk of the blouse.

‘That was my mother. She’s decided to stay the night at Doris’s.’ She shook her head. ‘She’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer!’

Patrick smiled at her.

‘She’s a lovely person, Kate. Reminds me of me own mum. She had the same zest for life as Evelyn. It was overwork that killed her off, bless her. My one regret is she never lived long enough for me to give her a decent life. I’d have bought her a bingo hall of her very own.’

Kate laughed, knowing that he spoke the truth.

‘I would have, Kate, you can laugh.’

‘That’s why I’m laughing, because I know you’re speaking the truth. I can just see you doing it.’

They both grinned and then Kate took the cigarette from him and took a deep draw on it.

‘Do you want to stay the night?’

Patrick grabbed her thigh and squeezed it.

‘I’m not that kind of boy, miss.’ He fluttered his eyelashes and she laughed again.

He watched her and knew that if it weren’t for her, he would never have laughed again after today. Not really laughed.

She was as good as a tonic, as his mother used to say, and he did love her. He loved her very much.

Later on, in bed, they made love and she told him she loved him again.

In the dark and warmth of the night, with the musky smell of each other permeating their bodies, it did not seem wrong any more.

They talked till the early hours about Mandy and Lizzy, both exorcising their own particular ghosts. They had so much in common for two people who were, in outsiders’ eyes, so different. He agreed with her about sending Lizzy to Australia. He said that he would have done the same with Mandy. Lizzy was a girl who felt things deeply - too deeply, he said - and Kate loved him for his understanding of her situation. He seemed to have guessed that Kate felt responsible for her daughter’s troubles and tried, in his own way, to allay her fears. Finally, they fell asleep together, entwined, and stayed that way till the morning.

It was over breakfast that he told her his news.

‘I sold the massage parlours, Kate. All of them. I sign the contracts in five days’ time, and then they are nothing to do with me any more.’

Kate’s eyes widened. ‘You’re joking?’

‘No, I’m not. Since that girl was . . . What with my Mandy and everything, I don’t want anything to do with it anymore.’

Kate put her hand on his and squeezed it gently. ‘I’m glad, Pat.’

‘It came home to me that the man who murdered my girl was like the man who murdered young Gillian Enderby - a pervert of some kind. Except my Mandy was dragged off the street and Gillian was like a baited trap, waiting to be sprung. I ain’t silly enough to think that by selling the shops it won’t happen again, there’ll always be a demand for that type of thing, but at least now I know that I have no part in it.’

‘I think Renée would have been pleased.’

Patrick smiled.

‘Yeah. She would have. In a lot of ways you two are alike. Renée was small and blonde while you’re tall and dark, but in your personalities you’re similar. She had a brain, old Renée. She had more savvy than people gave her credit for.’

‘You still miss her, don’t you?’

He nodded. ‘But not like before. The physical pain has gone now. When she died, I felt as if someone had chopped off one of my arms or legs. I feel like that now about Mandy. But with Renée I can remember her now without pain. It’s a bitter-sweet memory.’

‘I understand.’

‘But I’ve got you now as well, and that helps me. It helps me a lot. If Renée could see me now I know she’d approve. She’d have liked you, Kate. You’d have liked her.’

Kate was not too sure about that but she kept her own counsel. Instead she poured him another coffee and smiled.

‘Well, I think you did the right thing. I don’t believe you would have been happy still owning those parlours, you know. Anyway, we start the blood testing in a couple of days and then we should start to get a result; if nothing else we can eliminate the large part of the male community, and that can only make our job easier.’

‘Do you really think the blood testing will achieve something?’

Kate nodded. ‘Yes, I do.’

Patrick sipped his coffee and then smiled back at her. He hoped so because he was footing the bill, but he would spend every penny of his considerable fortune to catch the man responsible for his daughter’s death. It made no difference who got him first, himself or the police, because no matter where they locked him up, Patrick knew he could get to him. In fact, he had more chance of getting to him once he was in prison. There was more than one old lag who owed him a favour.

He did not say any of this to Kate though. Even though they were now real lovers, admitting their involvement, he saw no reason to disillusion her about his motives in helping to find the man they were after. He would cross that bridge when he came to it.

All he wanted was a name, and he would do the rest. If it lay with him Katie would never know what he had planned.

A little while later, under the shower with her, he felt a twinge of guilt at keeping her in the dark. But it soon disappeared. Knowing Kate, she would fight for the man’s right to a trial by jury, lecture on his rights as a human being. He admired her so much. He smiled to himself.

‘What are you laughing at?’

‘You.’ His voice was jocular.

‘Me!’

She looked outraged so he kissed her. Some things were better left unsaid.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Lizzy was packing her small case. She placed her bright green Kermit the frog slippers in last and pushed the lid down to fasten it. Her long hair was loose and trailed into her eyes. She pushed it from her face impatiently.

There, she’d done it! Picking up the case she placed it on the floor by her bed and, going to the coffee corner, made herself a large mug. She sat at the table sipping it.

Her two weeks in the hospital had been a turning point in her life. Every time she thought of cutting her wrists she felt a flush of humiliation. How could she have done that, not only to herself but to her mother and her grandmother? It was a last dramatic act, as if she was saying,

‘Well, you know everything else about me, I might as well go out with a bang, not a whimper. Lay a bit of extra guilt on you all.’

Really she had done it because of her shame at her grandmother knowing about her diary.

The psychiatrist had explained to her about self-destructive behaviour. Lizzy had listened to the man, respecting his intelligence, knowing that he was trying to help her straighten herself out. And in two weeks she felt she had come a long way. One of the girls here had had a breakdown, and no one knew why. She had finally taken an overdose of aspirin and had nearly died. Her father was a respected lawyer and he had raised Cain every day his daughter had been in the ward. Finally the girl, a tiny redhead named Marietta, had admitted her father had been sexually abusing her since she was eight when her mother had died.