Want You Dead (14 page)

‘The fire brigade reckon it was probably caused by the wiring – they said it happens with old cars sometimes. The car’s destroyed.’

‘Apart from the car, darling,’ her father asked. ‘How are you? How’s the new man in your life?’

‘New man?’ Margot suddenly looked interested, in the way of a vulture spotting fresh roadkill.

‘He sounds really nice,’ her mother said. ‘A doctor! Quite a contrast to that awful liar, Bryce.’

Red felt her heart twist.

‘Tell us about this new man,’ Margot said.

Red sipped her champagne, thinking. She hadn’t told her family the latest news, and she didn’t feel like telling them at this moment.

‘We’re all so bloody relieved you have Bryce out of your life. He really was a horrible little man,’ her father chipped in. ‘Of course, we could never have said that to you at the time. But what a total conman. Thank God we found out in time!’

‘You really had a lucky escape,’ Margot said. ‘God, how close did you come to marrying him? Darling Red, we all love you and want the best for you. But that creep, Bryce whatsisname, honestly! He was the pits!’

‘I loved him,’ Red said defiantly, draining her champagne. She wasn’t driving now, and could drink as much as she liked. And one thing she really liked about her parents was their shared love of booze. At the time, I really loved him.’

‘Out of desperation?’ Margot asked.

Red glared at her sister, then reached for the decanter of claret and filled her wine glass. ‘Is that why you married Rory?’ she said, her anger starting to boil over. ‘Because you were thirty and desperate not to be left on the shelf?’

‘I don’t think that’s the case at all, Red,’ Rory said indignantly.

Her mother broke the awkward silence that followed. ‘Margot, darling, I’m sure Red didn’t mean that,’ she said, looking pointedly at Red. ‘Did you?’

‘None of you seem to understand that I did actually love Bryce then. Yes. Totally and utterly. I’d have done anything for him.’ She shrugged, and drank some wine, then looked at her sister. ‘Okay, so maybe I fell for Bryce because I was desperate. I was never Miss Perfect like you, okay?’

‘Shall we change the subject?’ their father said. ‘Let’s talk about something more cheerful. This flat you’ve found, Red. It sounds perfect for you!’

‘I want to hear about this new man in your life,’ Margot said insistently.

Red downed her glass of claret in one, and refilled it. Getting pissed, she decided, was the best option today. She had so badly wanted to tell them all about Karl’s death, but now something held her back. Maybe it was the fear of adding yet another item to the long list of failures and disasters that seemed to catalogue her life to date. Or maybe it was simply that after the nightmare of the past couple of hours she was badly in need of some TLC from her family.

‘I really did think Bryce was the one,’ Red said. ‘I owe a lot to Mum for finding out the truth about him. God knows what would have happened if she hadn’t been so perceptive. I could have ended up marrying a monster.’

‘But you are moving on now, aren’t you, darling?’ her father said. ‘You’ve found this new flat that you like?’

‘I’m hoping to exchange contracts soon. I’d love you to see it.’

‘Where is it?’ her sister asked.

‘Quite close to where I am now – along Kemp Town seafront. It’s gorgeous. The top floor with a balcony overlooking the sea – a real suntrap, and I think a good investment. It needs some renovation, but I’m fine with that because it’ll be a good project for me.’

‘When can we go and see it, darling?’ her mother asked.

‘Pretty well anytime. The owners are away in Australia. Perhaps next weekend, either Saturday or Sunday, if you’re free? I’ll arrange to get the keys from the agent.’

‘Are we free, darling?’ her father asked, looking at her mother for confirmation.

‘Sunday would be best,’ her mother said. ‘We’re meant to be bringing the boat back on Thursday or Friday, if the forecast is right, and we have a lot to sort out on it at Brighton Marina on Saturday.’

‘Ah yes,’ her father said. ‘We’re bringing her back from Chichester to the marina for the winter. So Sunday would be best. Look forward to it.’

33

Sunday, 27 October

Seething as he listened to the conversation, Bryce Laurent made a note in the large lined Moleskine notebook titled
Red File
into which he transcribed every conversation that Red and her family had.

Her totally fucked-up family.

He could picture the dining table exactly. He’d sat there himself through several painful lunches and dinners with Red and her evil parents. And on two occasions with her equally toxic sister and her dribbling turkey of a husband.

But Red’s sister and her husband were just a sideshow. Her mother was the truly evil, poisonous one. Supported by her vacuous fool of a husband.

I could have ended up marrying a monster.

He wrote down the words.

Really, Red? I’m a monster, am I? Well, if that’s what you think, then a monster I shall be! But I don’t think you really meant that, did you? Maybe you are just upset over losing your car? It was a bit of a dodgy vehicle. I did warn you about it. You really should not have been driving something that old with none of the modern safety features in it. Good riddance, I say. But hey, I understand you’re upset. You need cheering up. A nice gift might cheer you up, perhaps? Yes?

I have good thoughts about this.

A gift would be a nice touch.

Bryce looked at his watch. He had dated Red for almost a year when they had been walking, arm in arm, down Bond Street in London, and had stopped to look in the window of Cartier. She’d told him then that she thought they were the most elegant watches in the world.

He remembered the look of total joy on her face the day, just a few weeks later, he had slipped the Cartier Tank watch on her wrist.

But that was then.

He turned his focus back to the conversation, just one of the communications sent to him regularly throughout the day and night by the SpyBubble software, then replayed it from the start, listening intently.

Especially to the parts where they were talking about him.

‘
He sounds really nice. A doctor! Quite a contrast to that awful liar, Bryce.
’

That was her mother’s voice. Camilla Westwood.

Camilla!

Oh, you smug cow, Camilla. Don’t you realize how much I loved your daughter? I loved her in a way I’ve never loved anyone before. She was my light, my laughter, my sunshine. She was, quite apart from being the sexiest creature I’ve ever met, my soulmate. Your daughter was the woman who told me, who whispered into my ear while we were making love, that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me.

And I responded, ‘Right back at you!’

Three days later, she dumped me.

Poisoned by you and your husband.

I’m a monster, am I?

Okay, I’m fine with that, I can live with that. So long as you understand what monsters do. They kill people. They rip them to shreds. Happy with that?

Happy knowing you are going to die?

You really should not have said that.

‘
I owe a lot to Mum for finding out the truth about him. God knows what would have happened if she hadn’t been so perceptive. I could have ended up marrying a monster.
’

Do you remember the last text you sent me, Red? When you were still as crazily in love with me as I was with you? Before your toxic parents poisoned your mind?

Every part of me is thinking of you. It is totally the best feeling. I want it to stay with me for a long, long time. Am high on you and what you do to me, and I looooove the time we spend together, even if it is just staring at each other. I feel so lucky we feel like this. I’ve never felt anything so strong and I totally adore it. And I totally adore every inch of you. I go to sleep dreaming of you and I wake in the morning craving you – and counting the hours until I see you again. XXXXXX + XXXXXXXX + XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Oh shit, I adore you.

PS did I tell u I adore you? XXXXXXXXX

PPS did I tell you just how much I adore you?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

You sent this just two days before you dumped me.

Nobody changes their mind that fast. Not unless their mind has been poisoned.

And I’m really sorry – but no one can mess with another human’s emotions in that way. There’s a Rubicon in every relationship that we cross. You and I crossed it a long while ago. We crossed it, I thought, the day we were making love and you asked me to come with my eyes open, staring into yours.

That was the night our souls intertwined.

Can you even begin to understand the anger I am feeling now?

It’s why I have to kill you. Because I cannot live in a world in which you are with some other man. My heart just won’t take it. I’m sorry, Red. Really I am. We could have had such a great life together. Instead, we’re just going to have to settle for a great death.

Single girl, 29, redhead and smouldering, love life that’s crashed and burned. Seeks new flame to rekindle her fire.

You wanted fire, Red? You’ve got it.

34

Monday, 28 October

At 8.30 a.m. on Monday, Red sat once more in the basement consulting room of the terraced house, close to Brighton station, with the crimson Buddha staring benignly down at her from the mantelpiece. The room felt chilly, the ancient two-bar electric fire in the grate giving out scant heat.

‘So how was your weekend, Red?’ Judith Biddlestone asked.

‘Let’s not go there.’

‘Oh dear, I’m sorry. Any parts of it you want to talk about?’

‘My car caught fire.’

‘Oh my God. Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine. I managed to get out, thank goodness, before it burst into flames. Afterwards I had to endure more sarcasm from my sister at Sunday lunch. It wasn’t the greatest weekend. I kept thinking how Karl and I had planned to spend it.’

‘Your older sister, Margot, who you describe as
successful
?’

‘And who has never stopped letting me know it, all my life.’

‘I don’t think she’s ever helped your confidence, has she?’

‘Probably not. No.’

‘Do you want to talk about your weekend or shall we revisit what we bracketed at the end of the last session?’

‘Let’s keep talking about Bryce. That’s why I came to see you in the first place.’

‘You told me that the private detective your mother had secretly hired found out that Bryce lied to you about what he did for a living, and about his past. How did he learn about what you had discovered?’

‘I confronted him with it.’

‘How did Bryce react?’

‘With total denial. He said the detective had the wrong person.’

‘What happened then?’

‘I said I needed some space to think about our relationship and our future. He didn’t want to know. He kept insisting that we were engaged, and we were going to spend the rest of our lives together.’

‘And were you engaged at this point?’

For some moments Red was hesitant in replying. ‘Well, in his mind, yes. We were having dinner in Cuba Libre – the restaurant where we’d had our first date – when he suddenly put a little box on the table. He took out a ring and slipped it on my wedding finger, and then asked me to marry him. Actually, I didn’t like the ring, it wasn’t my taste at all – it was very bling. And I was already uncertain about him at this stage. There were so many ups and downs, good times and bad. I told him I would have to think about it. That triggered another row when we got back to my flat – he went bananas. I ended up calling the police. And PC Spofford came. They arrested Bryce and took him away because I was scared to have him in the house. But they had to release him on police bail the next day because he hadn’t hit me or anything. He’d just been abusive, and I didn’t want to press charges.’

‘He was taken into custody the night he asked you to marry him, due to his rage. You told him you needed time to think, and yet he believed the two of you to be engaged. How did you make sense of that?’ the psychologist asked.

‘That’s how things were with Bryce and me. What he wanted, he got. I learned not to contradict him. I knew I hadn’t accepted his proposal but calling the police hadn’t worked – he was back the next day, being nice and acting all
loved up
because we were engaged. I just went along with it. It was important not to give him a reason to get angry.’

‘What the detective had uncovered, I’m sure, would have fallen squarely into the category of things that would give him a reason to get angry?’

‘Definitely! Things just went from bad to worse. The detective said Bryce had told me a pack of lies about his background, and that he had a conviction for serious assault in the US. Part of me wanted out, but whenever I tried to broach this with him, he would burst into tears, throw his whole unloved childhood baggage at me, tell me that I was the only person who had ever given him a feeling of self-worth in his life. And he swore he would change. He said he knew he wasn’t perfect but that the detective had got the wrong man and that he hadn’t lied to me about all those things. He was very convincing. I wanted to believe him.’

‘When you think about that now, why do you think you wanted to believe Bryce?’

‘I felt such a fool when I heard what the detective had found out and especially that my mum had been right not to trust Bryce. I – I guess I’d put so much of myself into the relationship it was difficult just to walk away.’

The psychologist said, ‘Of course it was difficult, Red. I liken the incongruity of hating the way you are treated in a relationship yet not wanting to leave it to the experience of newly trained troops.’