A Regimental Affair (36 page)

Megan sighed heavily again and blinked rapidly a couple of times. She got herself under control. ‘I just can’t believe my dad did that, went with her like that.’

‘No.’

Megan looked at Jen. ‘Do you think your dad’s ever done anything like that?’

‘I don’t reckon. I mean, I love him and all that but I can’t imagine him being able to pull a bird. He’s hardly a looker, is he? Ugh, think about it, it’s gross.’

Megan giggled at the thought of Alisdair trying to pull a woman. ‘But look at my dad, he’s old. I can’t imagine why Ginny fancied him.’

Jen didn’t say that she thought Megan’s dad was lush. She understood exactly why Ginny had gone with him if the story in the press was to be believed. She was old enough to know not to believe everything she read in the papers, but equally she knew about there being no smoke without fire.

‘Did they find anything?’ Alice asked Sarah tonelessly when they had settled down in her sitting room with a cup of tea.

‘I don’t think so. They’ve taken away a whole load of papers from the study, bank statements and the like.’

‘I suppose they’re looking for evidence of hotel rooms.’

Sarah wasn’t sure what to say.

‘Oh don’t worry,’ said Alice. ‘I don’t think Bob and Ginny got up to those sort of shenanigans. I mean, when? Until they went to Kosovo he didn’t have to go away overnight at all. Besides which, what was the point when they knew they would have six whole months with me well out of the way?’

‘But it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t planned, was it? And it was only very brief.’

‘Bob says so, but can I trust him? For all I know they were at it like rabbits for the whole time they were there.’

‘For what it’s worth, Alisdair thinks Bob is telling the truth.’

Alice bit her thumbnail. ‘Which begs the question, if it was such a meaningless affair, why did it happen at all? That’s the thing I want to know.’ She sounded cold and bitter. ‘Why did Bob take such an enormous risk with our marriage, his career, everything, for a few rolls in the hay with that woman? I can’t believe he was so foolish. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Isn’t it a throwback to the hunter-gatherer instinct? The thrill of the chase and all that? How men can’t resist going after things, especially things that involve an element of danger.’

‘I’m rather hoping
she
went after
him
,’ said Alice tartly.

‘Yes.’ Sarah could understand that sentiment. It was easier to bear. Both women sipped their tea contemplatively. ‘Have you made up your mind what you’re going to do?’ asked Sarah.

‘You mean, am I going to leave him?’

Sarah shrugged. It was one of the matters that needed addressing.

‘I don’t know. I’ve got to stick by him publicly until the investigation is over – you know, like politicians’ wives. If I go now it just confirms things, which will hardly help him. And if he gets sacked then life will be awful for all of us whether I’m with him or not. But part of me feels like I want to punish him. What he’s done is terrible. It’s not just the infidelity. I think I could cope with that if that was all it was. No, it’s the shame and the publicity. That’s what I find so hard to forgive.’

‘To err is human, to forgive is divine,’ murmured Sarah almost without realising she had voiced the thought out loud.

‘You think I should forgive him?’ said Alice sharply.

‘I don’t know. I don’t feel in a position to comment.’

‘No. The thing is, part of me feels that I’m also to blame. That, because I don’t do things like Ginny, that’s why he found her so attractive. If I was a bit more fun he might not have gone off with her. Perhaps everything that happened is really my fault.’

‘I think that’s ridiculous.’

‘Is it? I’m prissy. I know enough about myself to know that. I’m all repressed and uptight. I’m a goodytwo-shoes. And Ginny, well, she’s more of a free spirit, isn’t she? She does things and has no regrets, whereas I would always worry about the consequences, so I don’t do things in the first place.’

‘But haven’t you ever done anything you regretted?’

Alice thought for a while. ‘No,’ she said simply.

‘Never?’

‘No.’

‘You mean you’ve never got drunk and wound up in an embarrassing position?’

‘No.’

Sarah was impressed. ‘Not even when you were a student?’

‘No. I suppose I’m terribly dull like that.’

‘No, you’re not,’ said Sarah who was wondering what Alice had ever done in her life apart from eat and breathe.

‘Have you?’

‘What, embarrassed myself?’

‘Yes.’

‘Countless times. If Alisdair knew about some of the things I did before I met him I think he’d be shocked to his socks.’

‘Really?’

Sarah nodded.

‘Like what?’

‘You don’t want to know,’ said Sarah darkly.

Alice looked disappointed, although she said, ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

‘Oh, I don’t suppose nowadays it would be considered so very shocking, not compared to the things you hear going on in some of those clubbing holiday resorts in Cyprus and Spain, but I did more than my share of drinking and twice I woke up in places and didn’t have any idea how I’d got there.’ Alice’s eyebrows were hovering near her hairline in horror. ‘And I slept with more boys than I care to remember. Of course, in those days, the only thing to be frightened of was getting pregnant, and the pill pretty well took care of that. I have horrors of Jen carrying on like me, what with Aids and everything. Not that she knows about my misspent youth, of course.’

‘No,’ said Alice automatically.

‘So you didn’t do any of this?’

‘No. Once I made up my mind I was going to get into the officers’ mess, I never drank.’

‘Well, I sort of knew about that. You said that last time we had a chat.’ Alice nodded. ‘But I didn’t know it meant that you’ve never been on the pop. But what about men?’

‘No.’ Alice looked almost ashamed. ‘There’s only been Bob,’ she said quietly.

Sarah exhaled slowly. ‘Good heavens.’

‘I suppose you think I’m odd.’

‘No, not at all. In a way I’m almost envious.’ Alice made a small noise of disbelief. ‘No, I am. You see, I’ve never really lied to Alisdair; I have just been economical with the truth about how many boyfriends I’d had before I met him. It wasn’t a detail I thought he needed to know. In fact, I always felt it would be better for him not to know everything about my past. Too many skeletons. But you, you don’t have to hide anything. I think that’s very commendable.’

‘No. But the thing is …’Alice stopped, reddening with embarrassment. ‘… the thing is, I don’t think I’m much good in bed. I think that could be why he had a fling with Ginny. I expect she was much more exciting. I haven’t got the first clue what to do, well, apart from the basics.’

Sarah looked at Alice and her heart went out to her. ‘But Bob must have known he was the first.’

‘I suppose so. I mean, I didn’t tell him as such. I was a bit inhibited about talking about things back then.’

God
, thought Sarah,
you’re inhibited enough now
. How inhibited must she have been then? ‘But he guessed?’

‘I think so. I mean, it did hurt a lot and there was quite a bit of, you know …’ A pause. ‘Blood.’

‘He would have known,’ said Sarah. ‘So, if you know nothing about sex, whose fault is it?’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Alice.

Sarah moved to sit on the edge of her chair so she could look Alice right in the eye. ‘Look, I’ve slept around. I’m not proud of it but I learnt a lot about what men like. You have only slept with Bob. So how are you supposed to have learnt anything? If he hasn’t told you, taught you, how are you supposed to know?’

‘Well, there are books.’

‘Cobblers. It’s not down to you. There’s an old saying that it takes two to tango. You mustn’t blame yourself if you don’t know all the tricks of the trade. If Bob wants a different sort of sex, new positions or whatever, he should have told you and taught you. Whatever Bob did in Kosovo isn’t your fault. He’d have probably done it anyway. It’s got nothing to do with acrobatics in bed, so you mustn’t blame yourself. Understand?’

Alisdair had almost finished for the day and was breathing a sigh of relief at having got through his first day as commanding officer without too many moments of angst. He was stacking papers and checking he’d signed everything Richard had prepared for him, when there was a sharp rap on his door. He looked up and saw Major Griggs and Mr Watson standing outside in the corridor.

‘You want to see me?’ asked Alisdair, although it was obvious that was exactly what they wanted. They came in and, rather ominously, shut the door behind them. Alisdair buzzed through to Richard that he was not to be disturbed, but that he would like one of the clerks to bring in three cups of coffee.

‘Take a seat,’ he told the two men. They waited in silence until a clerk with a tray of mugs appeared and disappeared again discreetly.

‘I thought you ought to be given an update on our investigation,’ said Major Griggs. When he had introduced himself to Alisdair, he hadn’t volunteered a first name and Alisdair found that he didn’t particularly want to know it anyway. He didn’t fancy having this man for a friend so if things stayed formal that was fine by him. ‘We have been unable to find any concrete evidence that anything untoward went on between Colonel Davies and Captain Turner.’ He sounded almost disappointed.

Alisdair felt irritated by the tone. ‘What did you expect? Colonel Davies has denied there was any affair at all and even the
Mercury
alleged that the affair only consisted of a one-night stand on the side of a mountain in the middle of bloody Kosovo, followed by a few grabbed moments in the billets.’

‘Yes, sir, but we thought that there might have been other assignations either before or since.’

‘Assignations? You mean you hoped that they might have been rolling around together in a local hotel, with bills and witnesses all over the place so you could have them bang to rights.’ Even as Alisdair said this, he realised that the phrase ‘bang to rights’ wasn’t the best one to use in the circumstances, but he was angry and hadn’t been thinking as clearly as he should have been. The fact of the matter was that this whole incident had incensed him. Not what Bob and Ginny had got up to, he couldn’t have given a damn about that – apart from the fact that it was a lousy thing to do to Alice – but the official investigation into everything had got right under his skin. The army’s attitude was that extramarital affairs undermined discipline, were bad for morale and were prejudicial to the establishment. The fact that the rest of the human race could be unfaithful without their personal possessions and private lives being pawed over by policemen, followed by horrendous disciplinary proceedings and the ruination of their careers, seemed to make it all grossly unfair. And it was precisely because the army got so upset by this sort of peccadillo that made it front-page news when some poor chap got caught with his trousers down. Alisdair had no doubt that married bank managers had been known to bonk attractive female tellers; that doctors had had it away with receptionists – and a couple of MPs had certainly knocked off their researchers – and they had all retained their posts, their status and their perks. But if an army officer stepped out of line, first it hit the front pages, then the shit hit the fan, and then he or she hit the proverbial skids. And now this pair of goons sitting in front of him seemed to be positively disappointed that their investigations had drawn a blank and they wouldn’t be able to crucify Bob and Ginny.

Major Griggs and his stooge shifted uncomfortably in their seats, aware that they were causing a senior officer to view them with a great deal of displeasure.

‘And you were unaware of anything untoward going on between Colonel Davies and Captain Turner.’

‘Yes, nothing at all. And seeing how well I know both of them, I think I would have done.’

Griggs looked unconvinced. ‘We will have to take statements from both of the parties,’ he said. ‘And, of course, we’ll need to talk to Tabitha Alabaster.’

‘The first two are easy enough; the chief clerk has their current addresses. As for Tabitha Alabaster, you’ll have to get hold of her through the paper. She left her house in the village the weekend before the story appeared and no one has seen her since.’

‘She worked out she wouldn’t be the most popular inhabitant, then,’ said Mr Watson.

‘Precisely.’

After the military policemen had gone, Alisdair rang Bob. ‘They haven’t found any evidence,’ he told him.

‘Of course not. There wouldn’t be any.’

‘Let’s hope they don’t find anyone who might be prepared to give them any.’ Alisdair chose his words carefully. He was pretty certain no one would be listening to the phone call but you never knew. And if he was going to support Bob convincingly then he had to be sure that he didn’t let slip any hint that he knew Bob was lying.

‘Let’s hope indeed.’

‘I don’t want you to be cashiered. Apart from anything, it would destroy Alice.’

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘Ginny?’

Ginny recognised Chris’s voice at the other end of the line. ‘Yes.’

‘I’ve got a bloke booked in at the hotel who I think might be press.’

‘Really?’

‘Apparently he flew in this morning, but not on the scheduled chopper. He came on a private charter.’

‘And what makes you think he’s press?’ Although Ginny was certain he was right. She recalled the bloke walking into Hugh Town from the airport and, although the man she’d seen and the man at Chris’s hotel might have no connection at all, she reckoned that two and two made four whichever way you looked at it.

‘He’s been asking questions of my staff. He wants to know where Netta lives.’

‘Shit.’ That pretty much confirmed it.

‘Don’t worry, they’re playing dumb. They all know Netta’s a friend of mine.’

‘Have you seen this guy?’

‘No. He’d gone out again when I got back here from the farm. I imagine he’ll be in for dinner tonight. I’ll see if I can’t find out more about him then.’

‘Will you let me know anything that you do glean?Advance warning and all that.’