The Killings at Badger's Drift(17)

At the end of the week Rupert Winstanley had called her into his office and given her the address of a private clinic in Saint John’s Wood and a cheque for a hundred and fifty pounds. She had never seen any of them again.

She had had the abortion, being too distressed and lonely to work out an alternative. She wouldn’t now, of course. She’d drain the buggers dry. If she couldn’t get their respect or admiration or love she’d make bloody sure she got their money.

She’d been home from the clinic about a month and working as a shelf filler at Sainsbury’s when someone knocked at her door late one night. She opened it a crack. A man stood there smelling faintly of cologne and, more strongly, of beer. He wore a blazer with a badge, striped tie and grey flannels. He said, ‘Hu . . . l . . . l . . o . . .’ and eyed her up and down.

‘What do you want?’

‘I’m a friend of Alan’s, actually. He thought we might . . . you know . . . get on . . .’

She slammed the door. Rage and pain and disgust boiled up in her. She stood very still as if moving might wound. The bastard! The pain ebbed away; the disgust rushed down the conduit of memory, redirected at Alan and his kind. Only the rage remained. She listened. No footsteps. He must be still there. She reopened the door. He gave her a sloppy smile.

She said, ‘It’ll cost you.’ She watched the beery complacency slip a bit, and thought, so wrap that in your old school tie and stuff it.

‘Oh . . . um . . . all right . . .’ He made as if to step into the room. She put her foot in the gap. ‘How much have you got?’

He fumbled with his wallet, pulling out notes, a driving licence, a child’s photograph. ‘Fifty pounds . . .’

Nearly a month’s wages. She opened the door wide. ‘You’d better come in then, hadn’t you?’

And so it had gone. Recommendations. A friend of a friend. She’d never actually been without anyone. On the other hand she’d never really felt secure. The rent was always paid. She’d had some presents. Some very nice presents. A wolf coat from Harrod’s, a vast colour telly, a holiday in Portofino when the man’s wife was having a hysterectomy. But no security. No financial security, that is. Emotional security she had. None of them touched her. She would look down at them, as if from some high vantage point, huffing and puffing like saggy, impotent sea lions, and despise them all. She would never again let herself feel that sweeping golden rush of pleasure that had carried her so completely from the shores of sanity in the offices of Winstanley, Dennison and Winstanley over twenty years before. She couldn’t even remember Alan’s second name let alone his face.

And then she had met Trevor Lessiter. She had bumped into him, literally, in the food department at Marks and Spencers. Turning a corner in one of the aisles too sharply, their trolleys had locked antler-like in a metal clinch. She had immediately flashed him a radiant professional smile. He had been bowled over by the radiance and had quite missed the professionalism.

He was a funny little man with a round head, pepper and salt hair and a woolly scarf although it was quite a warm day. Expensive clothes, she thought, running a knowledgeable eye over his appearance, boringly old fashioned of course. The sort of man who carries his change in a purse. They pushed their trolleys round together. His was already over half full.

‘Your wife must have given you a very long list.’

‘No . . . that is . . .’ he stammered, looking at her quickly then back to the shelves. ‘It’s my daughter’s list . . . I’m a widower.’

With hardly a break in her step she said, ‘Oh - how thoughtless . . . I just didn’t . . .’ She stopped walking then and looked straight at him. ‘I’m so very sorry.’

They went for tea at a café over the Odeon. Barbara excused herself as soon as they were settled and retired to the Ladies’ where she removed one set of false eyelashes and half her lipstick, and put on some more scent. They met for tea again, then dinner at a hotel on the bank of the Thames at Marlow. They drove down in his beautiful old Jaguar. The doors clunked when they closed and it had real leather seats. At the hotel there were candles in glasses and flowers floating in glass bowls. She was used to dining in out-of-the-way places, but not with men who didn’t keep looking over their shoulders. He told her about his wife’s accident and about his daughter. He said, ‘I’d like you to meet her.’

This took some time to arrange. Weekends came and went and Judy always appeared to have something on. However eventually, at her father’s insistence, a Sunday afternoon was set aside. Barbara dressed very carefully: a soft paisley dress and a light tweed coat. Hardly any makeup: just blusher, bronzer, soft lipstick and a light brown eye pencil.