A Kind Of Wild Justice (17 page)

It was the best sex she’d ever had. By far. It was in
fact so superior to anything she had experienced before that it was almost like the first sex she’d had in her life. At the age of twenty-eight for God’s sake. She really could not explain why – but the fact remained that it was so wonderfully, stunningly, amazingly good that it frightened the living daylights out of her.

Fielding felt much the same way. He left her shortly after dawn. And he didn’t want to. He wanted to fuck her all day. And then all night. And then all the next day. Actually, he didn’t think he was capable of even one more time. But, he liked the idea of trying.

He felt elated and bewildered. How many women had he had? He’d long ago lost count. All shapes and sizes and ages. Even a couple of professionals. Most of them willing and eager to play any kind of sex game he fancied. Getting laid had, after all, always been just about his number one aim in life. That and the job, of course. Work as hard at seduction as he did and you were bound to get your share of success. So how was it that he had never felt like this before? How come sex had never been as good as this before? Come to that, he thought, smiling to himself, how come he had never been as good as that before?

He couldn’t understand it. He shook his head to clear his brain. He really had to be sensible about this. Best not to see her again, probably. He had enough problems, after all. The last thing he needed was an affair with a Fleet Street journalist. He’d cool it, that was the only thing to do, he reckoned.

Meanwhile Joanna lay in bed reliving the night she had just enjoyed. She was not in the mood to be sensible at all. Her whole body glowed and she
wanted more of it. She wondered how long she could string out her trip to Devon, and began to torture herself thinking of the kind of sex she and Fielding might have the next time – which she sincerely hoped would be very soon.

Then the phone rang. It was the news editor, Reg Foley, calling from his home at just after 7 a.m. to tell her that the editor wanted to buy up James Martin O’Donnell.

Joanna was not enthusiastic. She still thought Jimbo was a guilty man, didn’t like the idea of her paper throwing money at him.

‘He’s been acquitted, Jo,’ said Foley. ‘That makes him innocent, OK? Anyway, it’s what the editor wants, so let’s give him what he wants, shall we?’

Taylor was already on the case but naturally Tom Mitchell wanted his chief crime correspondent to mastermind the buy-up attempt – which meant Jo was needed back in London pretty damn smartish. So that was one question answered. Her trip to Devon was over already. She would certainly not be seeing Fielding again that day and she had no idea how long it might be before she did.

Obediently she packed her small bag. Before leaving the room she called Fielding at Heavitree Road. He hadn’t arrived yet. Well, it was still not quite eight o’clock. She left a message, in what she hoped was a businesslike manner, saying that she had been called back to her office in London and would he please phone her there later that day.

He didn’t phone. Not that day. Not the next day. Not all week.

Joanna was offended. She left a second message at
Heavitree Road. Then she phoned twice more without leaving a message at all. She supposed she would have to accept that for him she had just been another quick lay. After all, she knew his reputation well enough. She had even told him that. Why should she think for a moment that their one night in the sack would have been any different for him than all the other times. She had thought so, though. And that was the problem. For her, certainly.

Apart from any other considerations, his silence made her feel cheap. Fortunately she had little time to dwell on it. The Jimbo O’Donnell buy-up took all her time and energies. First she was involved in the negotiations and then, when the
Comet
succeeded in outbidding its rivals, Mitchell assigned her to do the interviews.

In spite of her feelings about O’Donnell it was always exciting to be at the sharp end of a big story and Jimbo was the sharp end all right. They took him to a remote hotel on the outskirts of Epping Forest in order to keep him away from the opposition until the series the
Comet
planned to run had been published. Joanna was booked into the room next to Jimbo and found that she was quite grateful that a
Comet
photographer was also booked into the hotel, plus another reporter whose job was primarily to act as a kind of extra minder.

There was something about the way the man looked at her which she found deeply disturbing. His attitude to her as a woman bordered on contempt. He had reverted to what seemed to be a penchant for wearing tight T-shirts to show off a torso which seemed to have become even more muscular during his stay in prison. Not to mention his horrible tattoo.
He also wore overly tight black jeans and had an unpleasant habit of periodically and quite blatantly adjusting his crotch while staring at her challengingly. More than ever Joanna was convinced that he was guilty as hell, a sex monster who had got away with a truly dreadful crime – but in order to do her job she tried not to think about that.

Jimbo treated her to a predictable diatribe about his innocence and the police persecution that continually dogged him and his family. But among it there was some very good stuff, some pearls, in fact.

I AM NOT THE BEAST OF DARTMOOR, MY WRONGFUL ARREST NIGHTMARE
, screamed banner headlines in the
Comet
when the paper ran the first instalment of a three-part serialisation of the Jimbo O’Donnell story just six days after his acquittal. ‘I’d never hurt an innocent girl. I’m no sex monster. Just because some of my family have records, we’re always persecuted. They said I raped before but she led me on. If it was rape it was only date rape. And I was just a kid. I could never kill etc., etc.’ It was the story everybody wanted and Joanna was a good interviewer. She had coaxed Jimbo into talking about the earlier rape conviction, thus allowing the paper to print material it might otherwise have considered legally unwise.

She returned to the office on the day that the third and final instalment ran. Her job was over, the story written and published. The
Comet
no longer needed to mind Jimbo. The paper had successfully completed its scoop. Tom Mitchell was well pleased. Public demand had been such that the print run had been substantially increased. In the evening she went to the Stab to celebrate. It was always immensely
satisfying to have a few drinks in Fleet Street pubs when you knew you had pulled off the big one – even if it was a buy-up, which invariably lessened the thrill a little for Jo.

It was nine days, now, since she had spent that one night with Fielding. Still no word. She didn’t let herself think about it. She was on a roll, after all.

Paul Potter was in the bar and he bought a bottle of champagne, which they shared. But Jo left alone, the only way ever for a slightly drunk woman reporter to leave a Fleet Street pub, if she had any sense.

There was a car parked on the double yellow right outside and as she stepped on to the pavement its passenger door swung open, blocking her way. An arm reached out and a hand fastened round her wrist.

Alarmed, she almost cried out, then she realised who was in the car. It was Fielding. ‘Christ,’ she said. ‘Are you stalking me or something?’

‘You should be so lucky, darling, get in the car.’

He sounded angry. She hesitated. He half pulled her into the vehicle. ‘I’ve been reading that shit of yours, I just wanted to tell you to your face what I think of you.’

She stiffened. This was the man she had been aching to see for over a week, but she had never imagined meeting him in this mood. Suddenly she felt very sober indeed. She made herself respond in an even voice, as if she were not at all concerned. ‘And you’ve driven all the way to London specially, have you?’ she asked casually.

‘Don’t flatter yourself. I wouldn’t drive across fuckin’ Exeter to see you.’

‘I see.’ She struggled to keep calm.

‘You’re just scum like all the rest of the hacks,’ he
hissed at her. ‘How could you pay money to that perverted bastard? How could you give him a platform for his twisted bloody lies? How could you?’

She felt as if he had hit her. ‘It’s my job,’ she said.

‘Yes, and your job stinks.’

‘Really,’ she said. ‘Unlike yours, then. At least I don’t go around planting evidence on people.’ She got out of the car as she spoke and started to walk swiftly away from him.

He was too quick for her. He was alongside before she had even thought about breaking into a run. He grabbed her by one shoulder and pushed her against the pub wall. He looked absolutely furious. His eyes were blazing. He half shook her. ‘You bitch,’ he hissed at her through clenched teeth.

For a moment she really thought he was going to hit her.

Then the expression in his eyes softened, and the change in him was so fast that she was completely taken by surprise. He leaned forward and began to kiss her.

She responded at once, kissing him back with all her might, her body out of control. His hands found their way inside her jacket, she felt his fingers tighten round her breasts, his hardness shoving into her just as it had done the first time.

Almost as abruptly as he had begun, he stopped, pulling away from her. They stood on the pavement both breathing hard, looking at each other.

‘I really didn’t intend to let this happen again,’ he said quietly.

She didn’t reply, but reached for him, putting one arm round his neck, and drew his face to hers.

All too soon he pulled away again. ‘We’re standing
outside your office pub, that’s even worse than Heavitree Road police station, isn’t it?’ he enquired, his voice lighter now, his tone mischievous.

‘You’re dead right it is,’ she replied. It was too. The extraordinary thing was she would probably have let him fuck her right there against the wall before she had even considered the implications.

‘This time I’m the one with the hotel room,’ he said, very serious again.

She just nodded and followed him to his car.

Unlike Fielding, she did make some effort to remember she was still married. She left his hotel at 4 a.m. and got a taxi home, creeping into the spare room where she spent most of her nights now anyway.

Alone in the small single bed, she put her hand between her legs and remembered the pleasure she had so recently experienced. God, why was it so good? She really had no idea, but it had been even better than the first time. And it wasn’t over. Fielding had told her that he had to spend two more weeks in London. He had been sent to town to work on the London end of a long-running fraud case. It mostly involved endless boring days poring over records in Company House and he assumed he had been assigned to the operation so quickly after the O’Donnell trial principally in order to get him out of the firing line back in Exeter. He had also told her that he was already the subject of an internal inquiry following the allegations made against him in court.

The hotel wasn’t much, just about the cheapest available, but she supposed they were lucky he wasn’t in a section house. Apparently there had been no
room. The sex had not been affected by the insalubrious surroundings. It had been, if anything, even better than before. Fielding had asked Joanna if she could join him for the rest of his time there.

She didn’t hesitate. In the morning she told her husband that she would be out of town for two weeks on a story. He didn’t even bother to ask any questions. She knew he didn’t really care what she did any more and wondered why she had gone through the motions of returning home the previous night. Habit, she supposed. She packed a small bag and at the end of the working day high-tailed it to Fielding’s hotel room as soon as she could.

They had planned to go out for a meal. They didn’t make it. Just went to bed instantly and stayed there. She marvelled at his sexual energy and invention, and, indeed, at her own. She couldn’t believe how excited he made her. Fortunately it seemed to be the same for him.

‘I can’t get enough of you,’ he told her. He admitted then that he had planned to walk away from her, that from the start his feelings for her had been so strong that he had considered it too dangerous to continue seeing her.

‘That’s why I didn’t phone you, I never intended to contact you again after that first night,’ he explained. ‘Really I didn’t. And when I confronted you outside that pub I had utterly convinced myself that I was just there to give you a piece of my mind about that fucking awful story.’

He smiled, softening his next words. ‘I still think the O’Donnell buy-up was a fucking disgrace, by the way.’

She had not bothered to reply. They both knew
that everything in their lives, even including, for once, their respective careers, paled into insignificance compared with the desperate urgency of their love affair.

‘Then, when I saw you, legs up to your armpits, hair down to your waist, knowing how sexy you are, knowing what you’re like there …’ He placed his hand over her crotch. Quite lightly. But just the heat of his touch was enough to send her wild again. ‘I just couldn’t keep my hands off you,’ he continued, moving his fingers as if to prove the point.

‘Thank God,’ she breathed huskily, reaching out for him.

Each time the sex seemed to get better and better. Joanna wondered how long that could go on for. She had never experienced orgasms like this before and yet somehow the more she had of Fielding the more she wanted him. She never seemed to be satisfied. And even when neither of them was capable of any more sexual activity she needed to be close to him, to be touching him all the time, almost as if continually to make sure he was still there.

Her feelings for him grew day by day during that stolen fortnight. But she was confused by them. In many ways he was just the sort of man she didn’t like, yet her desire for him knew no bounds. And, in any case, there were so many different sides to him.

One night he confounded her. After making love to her he rolled off her on to his back, then reached out again with one hand and touched her mouth lightly. ‘I think I’ve fallen in love with you,’ he told her quietly.