Murder in the Second Row (29 page)

He was still
chuckling as their lips met. She found to her delight that he was a
graceful lover, smoothing over the occasional awkward moves and
leading her confidently in a dance of spiralling desire. His
fingers stroked and teased while his mouth moved possessively
across her lips, her neck, her breasts, making her arch her back
with a gasp. He built up the tension until she was ready to
explode.

‘I think we can
take the foreplay as read now, Jack, would you move on please?’ She
squirmed impatiently, reaching for him, but he teasingly pulled
back.

‘Don’t rush it,
Jessica. Good things take time you know.’

‘Jaaaack!’ she
wailed. ‘Please! If you keep me this close to the edge I’ll get
there without you!’

‘No you won’t,’
he murmured, sliding over her, ‘I’m right here with you.’ He moved
slowly at first, then faster as she urged him on, wrapping her arms
around him and pulling him hard against her. For once, every
flippant remark was chased right out of her head. He stoked her
steadily-growing need so deliberately, with such artistry, that she
was lost in the moment. Nothing else existed, just two hot bodies
working together with an amazing harmony that she had never known
before. She felt him start to climax just as the first waves of her
own broke over her, crest after crest of foaming boiling release
that left her spent and gasping, clutching his arms, falling back
onto sweat-damp sheets with a shaky sigh.

‘Oh wow.’

‘That’s all you
can say? Wow?’

‘That’s not
just any old wow, buddy. That’s “WOW!!” with neon lights and
fireworks and a full marching band!’ She reached up and pushed damp
hair off his face. ‘You’re pretty good at that, aren’t you? Do you
practise a lot on your own to get that degree of skill?’

He kissed her
hard to stop her from talking. ‘Be quiet now, Jessica. Enough
clever lines from you. If you set the alarm early enough you can
have some more in the morning. Time to get some rest.’

‘Oh Jack,
you’re so masterful I could swoon,’ she murmured drowsily.

‘Shhhh, go to
sleep.’

They slept
undisturbed.

In the morning
he gave her a slow-motion replay, gentle and dozy at first, alive
with unguarded looks and murmurs, a cosy togetherness that brought
them both a warm rush of release with little effort.

‘Mmmm, that was
nice. Can we stay here and do that all day?’

Jack raised
himself onto an elbow and checked his watch. ‘Actually, since it’s
Sunday today, yes, we could. Unless you’d like me to make you some
breakfast first?’

She bounced to
a sitting position at once and dropped a pillow behind her to rest
against.

‘Ooh, yes
please! Let’s have eggs and toast. Coffee with milk and one sugar,
please.’

He snagged a
towel from the end of the bed and hitched it round his waist,
pausing at the bedroom door.

‘How would you
like your eggs?’

‘Oh, however
suits you. I’m easy.’

‘I could throw
one of your smart remarks back at you for that, but I’m a better
person.’ He lifted his chin and made a dramatic exit.

Jessica
chuckled happily. This small-r romance thing wasn’t so hard after
all if you stopped making such a big deal out of it.

They spent the
day together, in and out of bed, talking, laughing, and with no
thought of anything beyond her four walls. Jessica felt knots of
tension leaving her muscles, and the last few were massaged away by
Jack under a hot shower late in the afternoon. She sprawled on the
bed in just a towelling robe, more relaxed than she’d ever been in
her life.

‘You know, we
should do this more often. It must be terribly good for us. Lots of
exercise, no big unhealthy meals – some real quality time.’

‘Pity we have
to work at all, really. Speaking of which…’

She groaned.
‘Don’t say you have to be on duty tonight, do you?’

‘Er, no, but
shouldn’t you be overseeing a show in an hour?’ He grinned at her
look of shock.

‘I’d forgotten
all about it! Theatre? What theatre?’ She sat up and looked
dejectedly at him. ‘You mean I have to leave this idyllic love nest
and go out into the harsh cold world? How unfair is that?’ She
pouted. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t want to come with me, would
you?’

He hesitated.
‘I would, but I really should finish reading some more reports
before tomorrow morning. Tell you what, I’ll take you down there
and pick you up afterwards, how’s that? You’ll be safe enough at
the theatre with all your security guys around, and more than safe
back here with Jellicoe and me to guard you.’ He paused. ‘That’s if
you want me here?’

She flung
herself across the bed and pinned him down, laughing into his face.
‘Silly question! It’s all I can do not to chain you to the bed-head
with your own handcuffs, dammit. Yes, Jack, I really would like you
to be here tonight, OK? Do you want a written invitation?’

He flipped her
over effortlessly. ‘No, but a spare house key might be handy.’

When Jack
dropped her at the theatre, he came in to have a word with Matt and
Paul to warn them about the threat to Jessica. They assured him
that they’d be on full alert and would ring him personally if they
needed to, putting his number on speed-dial in their cell phones.
Jessica waved him off with a hug and a kiss and her promise that
she would be extra careful to avoid any risky situations until he
came back to collect her.

She managed to
turn her thoughts to the job in hand and went to check the house
numbers, which was fortunate as she found her name was on the Front
of House roster for ushering that night – a fact she’d completely
forgotten.

‘Hi Gerald, how
do bookings look tonight?’

He waggled his
hand in a so-so gesture. ‘About the same as last night, no worse.
Have you got any promotional miracles you can pull out of the
hat?’

‘I’m working on
it. You just keep standing there and taking the money, and I’ll see
what I can do.’

In a fit of
inspiration that she wished she’d had days ago, she thought of
ringing the nearby retirement village and offering their residents
half-price tickets for the night. She checked her watch. An hour
before show time might just be enough time for some of them to make
it. She looked up the phone number and made the invitation, then
remembered to warn Gerald to look out for herds of elderly patrons
demanding half-price tickets.

‘I think you’d
better stay close to the box office to help me with that,’ Gerald
said. ‘If they’re all coming at the last minute and they’re old and
slow, we’ll need extra hands to take the money and get them seated.
Looks like you just volunteered.’

She grinned at
him. ‘Fair enough. At least it’s bums on seats, even if they are
wrinkly ones.’

Gerald was
right. When they came in they were indeed slow to process, but
since there were only five of them it wasn’t really a problem.
Jessica shrugged philosophically and showed them to their
seats.

Just before the
show was due to start, a group of six entered the auditorium. They
handed their tickets to one of the young ushers and she set off
with them towards row B but stopped in confusion. Row B was full.
Jessica watched as the usher checked the seat numbers again and
asked the seated patrons to check theirs. Headshaking all round,
followed by angry frowns and raised voices. Jessica guessed what
the problem might be and went to help.

‘Good evening,
sorry about this mix-up – may I see your tickets please?’ The
florid-faced man leading the group of newcomers thrust a handful of
tickets at her with a disapproving snort. Jessica checked the
date.

‘I’m terribly
sorry, sir,’ she said sweetly, ‘but you seem to have come to the
theatre on the wrong day. These tickets were for last night’s
performance.’

She saw a look
of alarm from what she assumed was the man’s long-suffering wife so
she quickly continued. ‘But it’s no problem at all – we do have
enough spare seats to fit you in tonight. If you’ll just follow me,
please?’

She took them a
few rows back to an empty section, then went to tell Gerald so that
he didn’t direct any latecomers to those seats.

Jessica picked
up her torch and took her seat in the auditorium next to the main
door. The young usher leaned across the aisle to thank her for
helping with the difficult customer.

‘I thought he
was gonna bite my head off! What a hardass!’ she whispered, rolling
her eyes.

The house
lights dimmed and the music faded out. Curtain up. This time
Jessica kept one eye on the show and the other on the audience,
mindful of her responsibilities as usher.

The first half
went smoothly, and as the lights came up for interval, she pushed
open the doors to the foyer, standing back quickly to avoid the
rush. She got the house total from Gerald and took it out the back
to write up.

‘Hello Jessica
my sweet, where have you been all my life?’ said Austin, slipping a
damp arm round her waist as she reached up to the noticeboard.

‘I think you
know that answer to that one, Austin. It’s either a) avoiding you,
b) in your wildest dreams, or c) for most of it I wasn’t even
born.’ She smiled to take the sting out of her words and deftly
skipped out of reach. ‘Gotta go, duty calls.’ She grabbed a slice
of lemon cake and went back to mind the audience.

The
florid-faced man was knocking back a glass of red wine in the foyer
while his timid wife sipped a can of soda.

‘Is everything
all right, sir? Are you having a pleasant evening?’ Jessica asked
him politely.

‘Oh yes, I
suppose so – although we are seated a bit further back than I would
have liked. And this wine tastes corked.’ He looked down his
bulbous nose at the glass.

‘I think you’ll
find that all our bottles are screw-topped sir, but I’m sure the
barman will cheerfully replace that for you.’ Jessica winked at his
wife as she walked away, receiving a surprised smile in return.

Gerald, on
seeing that the crowd at the bar had been served, moved to ring the
buzzer for the second half. Jessica shepherded the last of the
stragglers back into the auditorium.

When the
curtain rose there was an ‘ooh’ from the audience at the impressive
Petra set, making Jessica smile with satisfaction. “Garishly
unnatural” indeed. She wanted to find that newspaper critic and
make him eat his words, preferably garnished with arsenic.

Act Two
unfolded as intended, with the audience eagerly following the
twists and turns of the plot. The scene closed with Dr Gerard
solemnly announcing to the Boynton family that their formidable and
hated mother was dead. There was a dramatic silence followed by a
blackout. Seconds later, a cell phone could clearly be heard
ringing backstage. A ripple of amusement ran through the audience,
increasing to a roar of laughter when a man in the front row called
out ‘Too late, she’s dead!’

Jessica buried
her face in her hands and groaned. Somebody would be in for a
roasting for that. A cock-up that was so horribly noticeable by the
audience would be an almost unbeatable contender for the Golden
Paddle award.

She stood up
and edged along the back row towards the control room where she
peered in the window to see Gazza working the lighting desk. She
mimed violent strangulation. He replied with a gunshot to the head.
Somebody out back was due both punishments.

Once the
audience had left after the show, Jessica marched backstage with
purposeful tread to find out whose phone had rung so
inconveniently. Austin was tidying away the cue script in the stage
manager’s corner, and since he was technically responsible for
everything onstage and behind the proscenium arch, she interrogated
him first.

‘Well? Which
blithering idiot managed to ruin that little dramatic moment
then?’

‘I’m afraid
that was Erica. Her youngest daughter is home sick and she wanted
to be reachable.’

Jessica
stopped, the wind taken out of her sails. ‘Well, couldn’t she have
set the bloody thing to vibrate instead?’

‘She didn’t
know how, apparently. Don’t worry, young Stewart has shown her what
to do so it won’t happen again.’

‘Oh. Right. OK
then. Glad that’s all taken care of. So there’s nothing else you
need tonight, Austin?’ She caught the glint in his bloodshot eye
before he spoke and quickly forestalled him. ‘No, I can see you’ve
got it all under control. Carry on then. I guess I’ll just go on
home. Good work.’

Feeling a
little as if she was neglecting her duties by leaving immediately,
she went out to the foyer to see if Jack had remembered to come and
get her. He wasn’t there, and she considered going backstage again
to see if anything needed to be done, but he turned up a few
minutes later with a faintly smug look on his face.

‘That was fun.
One of your customers was double-parked out there while he got his
five passengers loaded up, and when I went to move him along I
noticed that his car registration had expired. I’m afraid he’s had
a rather expensive evening.’

‘Was he a
rather snotty red-faced bloke, tweed jacket and twittering
wife?’

‘That’s the
chap. Oh God, he’s not somebody important to the theatre, is
he?’

‘Nope, just an
asshole. You can throw the book at him as hard as you like.’ She
took his arm and smiled up at him. ‘Ready to go home?’

Next morning,
Jack woke her up early. Showing excellent time management skills,
he had her lying back breathless and satisfied by the time her
radio alarm came on. She hit the snooze button and snuggled up
against him.

‘That was
impressive. You deserve a hearty breakfast after all that exercise.
It’s my turn, so what will it be, sir?’