No Escape (6 page)

Tony was inside, holding the baby.

Shaking
the baby.

‘
Tony
!’ She ran to him, let the towel fall, grabbed Irina from him, saw that his face was red with anger. ‘What are you
doing
?’ She held the baby close,
felt her small body clenching, vibrating with distress, little arms slippery against her own wet body. ‘What were you
thinking
of?’

‘Shutting her up,’ he said. ‘That’s what I was thinking of.’

‘You were
shaking
her – it’s
dangerous
to do that, you
know
that!’

‘You didn’t come,’ he said. ‘I had to do something.’

From then on, the more impatient Tony became with Irina, the more she wailed when he so much as came near her. Aggrieved, he either ignored her altogether or picked her up in a
challenging manner which fuelled her distress. Disappointment and irritation turned into resentment.

‘She’s not nearly as pretty as she was,’ he told Joanne.

‘I think she’s beautiful.’

‘Not as bright, either.’

‘Just because she cries doesn’t mean she isn’t bright.’

‘I hope that bloody Jenssen woman didn’t land us with a dud.’

‘She’s not a used car, Tony,’ Joanne protested. ‘She’s our daughter. And if she ever did have problems, I’d only love her more.’

‘You’re such a romantic,’ he ridiculed.

‘I’m a mother,’ she said.

‘Not a real one,’ Tony said.

Joanne’s greatest fear, all through that first year of motherhood, had been that Tony might decide he wanted to get rid of Irina, but, consoling herself with the
knowledge that that would hardly be feasible, she had determined to take the best possible care of the baby without provoking her husband or leaving him alone with her. If Irina so much as
whimpered, Joanne flew to her side. If she had to go somewhere without Irina, she took her to her mother’s house in Edmonton.

While Tony was at Patston Motors, Joanne’s time with Irina passed contentedly, and then, of course, there were several more hours of peace most evenings when he was at the Crown and
Anchor. Except that because alcohol had always tended to feed Tony’s aggressive side, Joanne had begun to dread his return from the pub, and her own tension had transmitted itself to Irina,
so that invariably, when the front door banged on his arrival, Irina was already crying.

The first time Tony actually hit Irina (three days after her first birthday, a day on which he’d bought presents and fussed around her like any doting daddy) he wept afterwards with
mortification, swore he’d never do such a terrible thing again, but the baby’s screams heightened soon after, and his anger returned.

‘If you ever,
ever
hit her again,’ Joanne warned, ‘I swear I’ll report you.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ he jeered. ‘Who to?’

‘The police, social services, whoever.’

‘And then what?’ he said. ‘Even if you don’t care about getting into trouble, the first thing they’ll do is take her away, and you’ll never see her again
– which quite frankly wouldn’t bother me all that much.’

‘It’ll bother you all right—’ Joanne’s voice trembled ‘—if you end up inside and they get to find out what you’ve done.’

‘Shut up, Joanne!’ Tony yelled.

She stood her ground for once. ‘Everyone knows what happens in prison to men who hurt little kids,’ she said.

He’d settled down a bit after that. ‘No need to blow everything out of proportion.’

‘You
hit
our daughter.’

‘It was just a little smack.’

‘She’s a
baby
.’

‘I know,’ he’d said. ‘And I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again.’

‘Better not,’ Joanne had told him.

‘It’s down to you too,’ Tony had said. ‘You keep her under better control, and I’ll do the same with my temper.’

Joanne had wanted to believe him.

One night in the sixth year of their marriage, while Lizzie and Christopher had been making love in the bedroom of their Holland Park flat, Christopher had ducked his head
suddenly, and bitten her left breast, bitten it so violently that Lizzie had cried out in shock as well as pain.

‘My God, Christopher!’ She put out both her hands and pushed him away, shoved him so hard that he almost fell off the bed. ‘What the hell do you think you’re
doing
?’

It was two or so hours since they had left the Groucho Club where Vicuna Books had thrown a launch party to celebrate the publication of
Fooling Around . . . In the Kitchen
, an evening
during which Christopher had stayed modestly in the background, stepping forward only to speak of his great pride in his beautiful, clever wife.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, on his knees, panting a little, his eyes not a bit apologetic.

Lizzie stared down at her breast, and even in the dimmish light from her bedside lamp, she could see the red marks. ‘Have you gone mad?’

Christopher crawled tentatively towards her. ‘I got a bit carried away, and I . . .’

‘And you what?’ She grasped the edge of the duvet, tugged it up over herself, covering her breasts, feeling suddenly cold.

‘I thought you’d like it,’ he said.

‘Why on earth should you imagine I’d like being
bitten
?’

‘Just a little love bite, Lizzie.’

‘It was a full-blown, anything-
but
-love bite,’ she erupted, intensely relieved that the boys were both in Marlow with Gilly Spence, the part-time nanny from Maidenhead
they’d found when Lizzie had begun writing the second draft of her book. ‘And it bloody well
hurt
, you idiot.’

Disappointment of the kind she’d seen once before, eight months ago, when he’d startled her with the unexpected roughness of his lovemaking, flicked across his handsome face.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, a little coldly.

‘You were cold that night too,’ Lizzie said abruptly.

‘What night?’ he asked. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Just remembering that the last time you decided I might fancy rough sex was the night we celebrated the Vicuna offer.’

‘Rough sex?’ His eyes were amused. ‘Hardly.’

‘I’m not laughing.’ Lizzie’s upset was growing by the second. ‘Just wondering why my getting published should be some sort of catalyst for something like
this.’

‘That’s absurd.’ His amusement was gone. ‘Utterly absurd, Lizzie, and not a little offensive when you know how proud I am of you.’

She felt, instantly, ashamed, pushed away the notion that his untypical behaviour might have been rooted in some semi-subconscious power thing, a need to re-establish his dominance in their
relationship.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do know that.’

‘Well then?’ He made a move towards her, then stopped. ‘See? I’m nervous to come near you now.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘Idiotic and silly,’ he said. ‘A man could develop a complex.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Lizzie said.

‘No.’ Christopher shook his head. ‘My fault. I shouldn’t have done that.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t.’

‘May I see?’ he asked, softly.

She hesitated, the duvet still pulled over both breasts.

‘Please, Lizzie,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

Still she made no move, but Christopher reached for the cover and pulled it slowly away, his hands and expression very gentle now.

‘Dear God,’ he said, still very quietly, seeing the marks. ‘Did I do that?’

Lizzie didn’t speak.

‘May I kiss it?’ he said.

‘Kissing it better?’ Lizzie’s irony was soft, too. Old memories of Angela passed across her mind, before the accident, long before her breakdown, kissing away her scraped knees
and bumped heads.

Christopher touched his lips, with great gentleness, to the breast, then looked up at her. ‘You know I love you far too much to want to make you cry.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ Lizzie said.

His expression was almost boyish now. ‘Am I forgiven?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘So long as you never do it again.’

‘I won’t,’ Christopher said.

‘I’d have thought,’ she said, ‘that you’d know me well enough not to imagine, even for a moment, that I might enjoy any kind of roughness.’

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

‘Though then again,’ Lizzie went on, ‘I thought I knew you too.’

‘And so you do,’ he said, then hesitated.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘Just, perhaps,’ he said, ‘not quite all of me.’

It had, of course, happened again. Christopher was incapable, as Lizzie now knew, from the vantage point of several more years’ experience, of
not
letting it
happen again.

The next time was during that same summer.

July the eighteenth. Another night in London without the boys, because Lizzie had attended meetings with Andrew France and with Howard Dunn at Vicuna to discuss her second book, and Christopher
had been in surgery for much of the day.

They’d dined at l’Escargot in Greek Street, and afterwards, leaving the restaurant, a man had come up to Lizzie and asked for her autograph, and she had been both embarrassed and
delighted, and Christopher had teased her about it in the taxi on their way back to the flat, and the teasing had continued, gently enough, most of the way to bed, and almost immediately, after
that, they’d begun making love.

‘My very own celeb,’ he told her, planting kisses on her belly.

‘You’re still the star of this family,’ Lizzie told him, running the palms of her hands over his shoulders.

‘I’ve always wanted to fuck a star,’ he said, parting her thighs.

The word alone seemed to sound in the air like a warning, for Christopher never used it with her, certainly never during sex.

‘Don’t,’ she said.

‘Don’t what, star?’

‘Talk like that.’

‘Like what, fuck-a-star?’

‘Christopher, please.’ Lizzie wriggled away from beneath him.

‘Where are you going, fuck-a-star?’

‘I’m getting,’ she said, ‘out of bed.’

‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘Oh, no, you don’t, my little fuck-a-celeb.’

He leaned down heavily to one side, stopping her getting out that way, and then, as she began to turn the other way, he made a sudden grab for both her arms, pinning her down.

‘Not funny,’ she said, glaring up at him. ‘Let me go.’

‘Oh, God,’ Christopher said. ‘Oh, my God, Lizzie, you look so wonderful.’

‘Let me
go
, Christopher.’ She began to struggle.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, and straddled her. ‘Oh,
yes
, my Lizzie.’

He bent his head, tried to kiss her, but she turned her face away.

He bit her neck.

‘Jesus,’ Lizzie exclaimed, and kicked at him, saw that he was smiling, and kicked out again, harder, but that only seemed to inflame him, for he began to push her thighs apart again
with one knee. ‘If you don’t let me go—’

‘What’ll you do, fuck-a-star?’

Swiftly, smoothly, he released her left arm, lowered his upper body over her, trapping her more effectively, put one hand around her throat and squeezed.

She stared up at him, struggling to stay calm, sudden rage just managing to keep down her fright. ‘I will wait till you’ve finished,’ she said tightly, ‘and then I will
call the police and have you arrested.’ It was hard to breathe. ‘Let go of me
now
, Christopher.’

For another long moment, his fingers remained on her neck, half choking her, and then, abruptly, he released her and sat back on his haunches. ‘Better?’

She took a deep, trembling breath. ‘Now get out,’ she said, quietly.

‘No need for such a drama,’ he said. ‘Just a game.’

Lizzie went on looking into his face, not moving.

‘Get out of this room, Christopher,’ she said.

‘You need to learn to loosen up a bit,’ he said.

She took another, deeper breath.

‘Get
out
,’ she said.

He got off the bed, walked naked to the door, opened it, and left.

Lizzie waited for about ten seconds.

And then she began to cry.

Helen Shipley had just emerged from DCI Kirby’s office on the top floor of the AMIT NW building, still smarting from her govenor’s remarks about their lack of
progress in the Bolsover murder case – three weeks now since the discovery of Lynne’s body – when Geoff Gregory let her know that Pam Wakefield, the victim’s sister, was
waiting to see her.

‘Someone else to apologize to,’ Shipley sighed, heading down the stairs with Gregory. She’d woken up that morning with a headache, which her boss’s haranguing
hadn’t done much to cure. Another encounter with a still deeply shocked and understandably angry relative wasn’t going to help.

‘I don’t think she’s here to have a go,’ said Gregory.

‘Can’t imagine why not.’

They reached the first floor, turned left along the corridor, and Gregory, an old-fashioned man, stepped ahead of Shipley and opened the door of the interview room for her. ‘Here’s
the Detective Inspector for you, Mrs Wakefield.’

‘Mrs Wakefield.’ Shipley walked in, shook the other woman’s hand.

‘I hope this is all right,’ Pam Wakefield said, nervously.

‘Of course it is,’ Shipley said. ‘I told you, any time.’

‘Coffee?’ Geoff Gregory asked.

‘Not for me,’ Mrs Wakefield said.

‘Me neither, thanks, Geoff,’ Shipley said.

DS Gregory closed the door softly behind him.

At thirty-three, the victim’s sister was the same age as Shipley, but looking at her now, she might have passed for forty-five. Bereavement in the natural sense was often damaging enough,
but this kind of devastation often took a more dramatic physical as well as emotional toll. Pam Wakefield’s brown hair was greyer than it had been when Shipley had first seen her, her eyes,
dark brown, as Lynne’s had been, were deeply shadowed and had a haunted look, and her mouth was pinched.

‘I found something,’ she said now.

Helen Shipley’s pulse skipped as she sat down opposite her.

‘It was in a bag of Lynne’s.’ Pam Wakefield laid a small, white-backed card in the centre of the table.

‘May I?’ Shipley asked.