Not Safe After Dark (45 page)

‘I can cook, sir, and wash, and mend clothes.’

‘Valuable skills, indeed. Come, walk with me.’

I couldn’t just go with him, not that easily. I had to play the shy country girl. ‘I cannot, sir.’

‘Cannot? Why not?’

‘I don’t know, sir. It just seems so . . . forward. I don’t know you.’

‘Forward? Walking alongside a perfect gentleman in a public place?’ He smiled. He really did have a warm smile, the kind that leads you to trust a person. ‘Come, come,
don’t be silly.’

So I walked beside him. He offered his arm, but I didn’t take it. That didn’t seem to upset him too much. ‘You know, I think I might be able to help you,’ he said,
stroking his moustache.

‘Help me, sir? You mean
you
require my services?’

He laughed. ‘Me? Oh, no. Not me. A friend of mine. And I will speak for you.’

‘But you don’t know me, sir. How can you speak for me? You don’t even know my name.’

He stopped walking and put his fingers under my chin, lifting my face. He was taller than I, so I had to look up, though I tried to keep my eyes down under my fluttering lashes. I felt myself
blush. ‘I am an excellent judge of character,’ he said. ‘I believe you to be an honest country maiden, and I believe you are exactly what he has in mind.’ He let me go and
carried on walking. This time I picked up my pace to keep up with him, showing interest. ‘He does, however, have one peculiarity I must mention,’ he went on.

‘What might that be, sir?’

‘He prefers to conduct his business at night.’

‘That is strange, indeed, sir.’

He shrugged. ‘It is a mere trifle .’

‘If you say so, sir.’ As a country girl, I could, of course, have no idea of the ways of city folk.

‘So, should you be interested – and he is a most kind, considerate and bountiful master – you must go to him through his garden at night and he will acquaint you with his
needs. You need have no fears. He is an honourable man, and I shall be close by.’

Again, I had to remind myself that I was playing the role of a simple country girl. ‘If you think so, sir.’

‘Tonight, then?’

I hesitated for just as long as necessary. ‘Tonight,’ I whispered finally.

‘Meet me here,’ he said, then he melted into the crowds.

•

My plan was simple enough. I intended to gain entry to Angelo’s chamber under cover of darkness and . . . Well, I hadn’t really thought much past that, except that I
planned to confront him and expose him for what he was. If necessary, I would claim that I went to visit my friend Mariana and that he attempted to ravage me, but I doubted it would come to that.
One of the many advantages of being the duke’s wife is that subjects tend to fear my husband’s power, and I had no doubt that Angelo would give up his nightly escapades if faced with
their possible political consequences. A wife’s railing is easy enough to ignore, but the power of the duke is another matter entirely.

I could not help but feel restless all evening as I waited for the appointed hour. After the usual antics with cassock and vespers, I slipped a sleeping draught into the duke’s nightcap,
and he went out like a snuffed candle. When the servants were all in bed, I donned my disguise and slipped out of the house.

The dark streets frightened me, as I had not gone out alone at night before, and I feared lest some drunken peasant or soldier should molest me. In case of just such an incident, I carried a
dagger concealed about my person, a present to the duke from a visiting diplomat. But either the denizens of the night are better behaved than I had imagined, or I was blessed by fortune, for I
made my way to the square without any hindrance whatsoever. When I got there, I was surprised at how many people were still out and about at such a late hour, lounging by the fountain, talking and
laughing by the light of braziers and flaming torches. I had no idea that such a world of shadows existed, and I found that the discovery oddly excited me.

Pandarus appeared at my side as if by magic, wrapped in dark robes, his head hooded, as was mine.

‘Are you ready?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘Then come with me.’

I followed him through the narrow alleys and across the broad cobbled courtyards to Angelo’s quarters, where we paused at a gate in the high wall surrounding the garden.

‘This gate is unlocked,’ said Pandarus. ‘Cross the garden directly to the chamber before you, where you will find the door also unlocked. Enter, and all will be
explained.’

I managed to summon up one last show of nerves. ‘I’m not certain, sir. I mean . . . I do not . . .’

‘There’s nothing to fear,’ he said softly.

‘Will you accompany me, sir?’

‘I cannot. My friend prefers to conduct his business in private.’

He stood there while I gathered together all my strength, took a deep breath and opened the gate. There were no lights showing beyond the garden, so I had to walk carefully to make sure I
didn’t trip and fall. Finally, I reached the door of Angelo’s chamber, and it opened when I pushed it gently, hinges creaking a little. By this time I could make out the varying degrees
of shadows, so I was aware of the large canopied bed and of the silhouette standing before me: Angelo.

‘Come in, my little pretty one,’ he said. ‘Make yourself comfortable. Has my friend Pandarus told you what you must do?’

I curtsied. ‘Yes, sir. He told me you might have a position for me, but that you only conduct interviews at night.’

Angelo laughed. ‘He’s a fine dissembler, my Pandarus. But in that, he is not all wrong. I do, indeed, have a
position
for you.’

With this he moved towards me, and I felt his lizardlike hand caress my cheek. I should have drawn back, I know, and at that moment told him who I was and why I was there, but something in me,
some innate curiosity compelled me to continue my deception.

Angelo led me slowly to the bed and bade me sit, then he sat beside me and began his caresses again, this time venturing into more private territory than before. I took hold of his hand and
moved it away, but he was persistent, growing rougher. Before I knew it, he had me on my back on the bed and his hand was groping under my skirts, rough fingers probing me. I struggled and tried to
tell him who I was, but he put his other hand over my mouth to silence me.

All the time he manhandled me thus, he was calling out my name. ‘Isabella . . . Oh, my beautiful Isabella! Do it for me, Isabella. Please do it for me!’ At first this confused me,
for I was certain he hadn’t recognized me. Then I realized with a shock that he
didn’t
know who I was, but that this must be what he said to all his night-time visitors. He
called them
all
Isabella.

And then I understood.

The whole thing, the re-creation of the exact same conditions as the night I was to visit him in exchange for Claudio’s life – the hour, the insistence on absolute darkness. Though
Mariana had gone to him in my stead, Angelo either refused to believe this, or thought that by duplicating the trappings he could enjoy the treasures of my body time after time in the darkness of
his vile imagination.

As we struggled there on the bed, disgust and outrage overcame any simple desire I harboured for justice, and I knew then what I had been planning to do all along. Angelo’s behaviour just
made it all that much easier.

I slipped out my dagger and plunged it into his back with as much force as I could muster. He stiffened, as if stung by a wasp, and reared back, hand behind him trying to staunch the flow of
blood.

Then I plunged the dagger into his chest and said, ‘This for Mariana!’

He croaked my name: ‘Isabella . . . my Isabella . . .’

‘Yes, it’s me,’ I said, ‘but I’m
not
yours.’ And I plunged the dagger in again. ‘This is for me!’ I said, and he rolled to the floor,
pleading for his life. I knelt over him and plunged the dagger in one more time, into his black heart. ‘And this is for not being able to tell us apart in the dark!’

After that he lay still. I didn’t move for several minutes, but knelt there over Angelo’s body catching my breath until I was sure that no one had heard. The house remained
silent.

Knowing that Pandarus was probably still lurking by the garden gate, I left by the front door and hurried home through the dark streets. Nobody accosted me; I saw not a soul. When I got home, in
the light of a candle in my chamber, I saw that my clothing was bloodstained. No matter. I would burn it. As soon as that was done and I was washed clean of Angelo’s blood, all would be well.
Mariana might shed a tear or two for her miserable, faithless husband, but she would get over him in time and he would never hurt her or anyone else again.

And as for me, as I believe I have already told you, there are many advantages to be gained from being the duke’s wife, not the least of which is the unlikelihood of being suspected of
murder.

1

Banks pulled up
outside his parents’ council house and parked his Renault by the side of the road. He wondered if it would be safe left out overnight. The
estate had had a bad reputation even when he grew up there in the sixties, and it had only got worse over recent years. Not that there was any alternative, he realized, as he made sure it was
locked and the security system was working; his parents didn’t own a garage.

He couldn’t very well remove the CD player for the weekend, but to be on the safe side he stuffed the CDs themselves into his overnight bag. He didn’t think any young joyriders would
want to steal Thelonious Monk, Cecilia Bartoli or the Grateful Dead, but you couldn’t be too careful. Besides, he had a portable disc player now, and he liked to listen to music in bed as he
drifted off to sleep.

Banks’s parents’ house stood near the western edge of the estate, close to the arterial road, across from an abandoned factory and a row of shops. Banks paused for a moment and took
in the red-brick terrace houses – rows of five, each with a little garden, low wall and privet hedge. His family had moved here from the tiny, grim back-to-back when he was twelve, when the
houses were new.

It was a Friday afternoon near the end of October, and Banks was home for the weekend of his parents’ golden wedding anniversary that Sunday, only his second overnight stay since he had
left home at the age of eighteen to study business at London Polytechnic. When that didn’t work out, and when the sixties lost their allure in the early seventies, he joined the police. Since
then, long hours, hard work, and his parents’ overt disapproval of his career choice had kept him away. Visiting home was always a bit of a trial, but they
were
his mother and father,
Banks reminded himself; he owed them more than he could ever repay, he had certainly neglected them over the years, and he knew they loved him in their way. They weren’t getting any younger
either.

He took a deep breath, opened the gate, walked up the path and knocked on the scratched red door, a little surprised by the loud music coming from the next house. He saw his mother approach
through the frosted-glass pane. She opened the door, rubbed her hands together as if drying them and said, ‘Alan, lovely to see you. Come on in, love, come in.’

Banks dropped his overnight bag in the hall and followed his mother through to the living room. It stretched from the front of the house to the back, and the back area, next to the kitchen, was
permanently laid out as a dining room. The wallpaper was a wispy brown autumn leaves pattern, the three-piece suite a matching brown velveteen, and a sentimental autumn landscape hung over the
electric fire.

His father was sitting in his usual armchair, the one with the best straight-on view of the television. He didn’t get up, just grunted, ‘Son, nice of you to come.’

‘Hello, Dad. How are you doing?’

‘Mustn’t complain.’ Arthur Banks had been suffering from mild angina for years, ever since he’d been made redundant from the sheet-metal factory, and it seemed to get
neither better nor worse as time went on. He took pills for the pain and didn’t even need an inhaler. Other than that, and the damage booze and fags had wreaked on his liver and lungs over
the years, he had always been as fit as a fiddle. Hollow-chested and skinny, he still sported a head of thick dark hair with hardly a trace of grey. He wore it slicked back with lashings of
Brylcreem.

Banks’s mother, Ida, plump and nervy, fussed a little more about how thin Banks was looking, then the kitchen door opened and a stranger walked into the room.

‘Kettle’s on, Mrs B. Now, who have we got here? Let me guess.’

‘This is our son, Geoff. We told you he was coming. For the party, like.’

‘So this is the lad who’s done so well for himself, is it? The Porsche and the mews house in South Kensington?’

‘No, that’s Roy, the other one. He’s not coming till Sunday afternoon. He’s got important business. No, this is our eldest, Alan. I’m sure I told you about him. The
one in that picture.’

The photograph she pointed to, half-hidden by a pile of women’s magazines on one of the cabinet shelves, showed Banks at the age of sixteen, when he captained the school rugby team for a
season. There he stood in his purple and yellow strip, holding the ball, looking proud. It was the only photograph of him they had ever put on display.

‘This is Geoff Salisbury,’ said Ida Banks. ‘Geoff lives up the street at number fifty-five.’

Geoff moved forward, hand stretched out like a weapon. He was a small, compact man, with lively, slightly watery eyes and cropped grey hair, about Banks’s age. His smile revealed what
looked to Banks like a set of perfect false teeth. His handshake was firm, and his hands callused and ingrained with oil or grease from manual labour.

‘Pleased to meet you, Alan,’ he said. ‘I’d love to stay and chat, but I can’t just now.’ He turned to Banks’s mother. ‘Have you got that shopping
list, Mrs B? I’ll be off to Asda now.’

‘Only if you’re sure it’s no trouble.’

‘Nothing’s too much trouble for you, you know that. Besides, I have to go there myself.’