What he had had in mind for the evening had been to get to this point and then make love to Stella. The confusion of intercourse and its consequent sleepiness might make her less aware of her sudden drop into sleep. But if he couldn’t do it. .
Still, mustn’t write off the possibility yet. Maybe, with a little more stimulation, something could be achieved. He leant over towards Stella and started to undo the remaining buttons of her dress. As he did so, he evolved his contingency plan if sex proved impossible.
‘Like Christmas,’ he murmured. ‘Unwrapping the goodies.’
She smiled and reached up to the top button of his shirt. Swallowing a yawn, she asked, again in the baby voice, ‘And what has Santa brought for me?’
Not what you asked for, thought Graham, controlling the anger her affectation sparked in him.
Two people undressing each other as they lie side by side is not the most efficient way of removing clothes. It takes a long time. Which was exactly what Graham had planned. Minute by minute, Stella was yawning more, and her eyelids flickered with increasing frequency.
But eventually the two of them were just down to briefs and Stella’s searching fingers made further concealment impossible. Graham rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed with his back to her, as though to hide his shame. Time for Plan B. ‘I’m sorry,’ he announced brokenly. ‘It’s too soon.’
‘Too soon?’
‘Too soon after Merrily. It’s not that I don’t want you. God knows,’ he lied, ‘it’s not that I don’t want you. It’s just. .’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ He felt Stella’s hand on his shoulder, pulling him round. Again he experienced a flash of fury, which he managed to extinguish. He turned towards her, framing his face into an expression of shame.
She was all motherly now, her arms threatening to smother him. ‘It’s all right. It’s only to be expected. Let’s just have a cuddle. That’ll make you feel better. It’s just warmth you need, warmth and. . comfort.’
The last word was interrupted by a jaw-stretching yawn. Graham complied and lay in her arms. Continuing Plan B, he maundered on for a while about how ashamed he felt, how awful, how debased, how abject.
‘Yes,’ Stella murmured at intervals. ‘Yes. . it’s only to be expected. Yes. . yes … of course. . you mustn’t worry about it. . yes. .’
The intervals between the words grew longer, and then there were no more words. The rhythm of her breathing grew thick and heavy. Her mouth dropped open and a soft vibrating resonance began to sound with each breath.
Graham squinted round at the clock radio. 11:43. Good.
He waited unflinching for a few more minutes. As he did so, he looked at Stella’s face thrust close to his. He saw each pore and imperfection, as under a microscope. He saw the dark hairs that sprouted at the corner of her mouth and from her nostrils. Onion smell from the salads breathed across his face. Stella’s body twitched a few times as sleep took command.
And Graham knew that if anything went wrong, he would have no hesitation in killing her. More than that, he would take pleasure in doing it.
Another look at the clock. 11:54. Time.
He gently disengaged Stella’s arms from his body. She shuddered and rolled over to lie on her back. The vibration with each breath now took on the rasp of a snore. He tugged the duvet from under her, producing no reaction, and covered her with it.
He dressed quickly in the old jeans, shirt, pullover and sports shoes he had left in readiness behind the chair.
Stella did not stir.
He went across to the clock radio and, with one finger on ‘Time’, pressed the ‘Hour’ button through twenty-two numbers. When the display read ‘9.59 p.m.’, he released the buttons.
He moved across to the side of the bed and switched off the light. The click did not change the heavy rhythm of Stella’s sleep.
He slipped out of the front door and walked the quarter mile to where he had parked the Vauxhall Chevette.
By nine minutes past twelve, he was on his way, driving out of London in a south-westerly direction.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
He took the A3 to Milford, and thence the A286 through Haslemere and Midhurst to Chichester. There was very little traffic about at that time of night, but even on the good bits of dual carriageway he did not exceed sixty. It was not a night to do anything that would attract attention.
He made good time, and a little before half-past one turned off the A27, following the sign to Bosham and Bosham Hoe. He turned again for the quay and parked up a side street. The back walls of gardens gave him some protection from curious insomniacs, and he avoided the exposure and double yellow lines of the main thoroughfare. Again, he did not wish to have the success of his great transgression jeopardised by some minor infringement.
Before he got out of the car, he checked the breast pockets of his shirt. New padlock key, a tube of glue, some small strips of sandpaper, a selection of knives, gimlets and screwdrivers. And a box of Swan Vestas matches.
He pulled the waders and torch over from the back seat and got out of the car. He closed the door and locked it.
Immediately his nose caught the seaweedy smell of exposed mud. Please God, to his surprise he found himself praying, please God may I have read the Tide Table right.
If he had, the timing for his adventure was ideal. High water at Portsmouth that evening had been at 18.27. It was neap tide; a spring would have been better, he reflected, but you can’t have everything. According to his reckoning, adding the specified time difference for Bosham (five minutes for a neap tide), low water would be about quarter to two in the morning.
He took off his right shoe and started to pull on one of the waders. He leant against the car to do so. No lights shone in the side street. There was very little moon, the sky cloudy. All he could hear was the susurration of the invisible sea, and a distant incessant rattling, which at first he could not identify but then recognised as the banging of metal halyards against the masts of boats.
As he pushed his foot into the wader, the studs of its sole rasped on the tarmac surface of the road. No, not here. Someone might hear the clatter of his footsteps. Carefully he withdrew his foot and replaced the shoe. Eliminate unnecessary risks, that was what he must do. Just keep calm, and eliminate unnecessary risks.
He rounded the corner into the main street, and he could see the creek ahead. The seaweedy smell was stronger, the chattering of the halyards louder. A few lights shone on the opposite side, others on boats winked as they moved in the swell. A notice warned him that the road was liable to tidal flooding.
He moved left across the shingle, trying to remember where Tara’s Dream was moored. On the previous occasion, of course, he and Robert had been in the dinghy and rowed round from the quay. But he remembered how he had looked back wistfully at the shore and tried to reverse that bearing. He kept looking back to the picture window he had seen then and trying to reproduce his point of view.
His shoes sounded softly on the shingle. Again he was glad he had not yet donned the waders. Eliminate risk. He was glad he hadn’t used the torch yet either. His eyes were accustoming well to the gloom.
He looked back to the frontage of houses. A light shone from one upstairs window, but that had been on when he arrived. No cause for anxiety. His eyes knew rather than saw where the picture window was. The angle of his advance seemed correct.
Ahead of him the outline of a boat took shape. Beached by the ebbing tide, she listed slightly, held upright by props. She had the hunched shoulders look of a sailing boat with a cabin. The shape was deliciously familiar.
He felt a surge of confidence. Everything was going to work. And the boat was right out of the water. He wouldn’t even need the waders.