“Accessory to what? Partying?”
She smiled more broadly. She knew he had no reason to be honest with her, and that was probably for the best. She found the prospect of his criminality intriguing but she didn’t necessarily want to know any detail.
“Really,” she said, and she sounded disappointed, “there’s only one of these people I can be absolutely certain about: Philip Masterson. For that name there’s only one address that fits the bill at all. It’s in Maida Vale, whereas all the other Philip Mastersons live in Walthamstow or Peckham or areas like that. He has to be the one.”
Mick looked at her unsurely. These were all place names he’d never heard before. They evoked nothing for him, had no ring to them, no connotations. But he nodded willingly enough. He believed her. He trusted her to the extent that he had to. She was his only ally, his only source of favours and information. She handed back the pages of directory and pointed out the address that fitted.
“You’re good,” he said.
“Not bad for someone who looks like a foreigner, eh?” she said. “Do you know where Maida Vale is?”
“It’s OK,” he said triumphantly. “I’ve got a map, remember.”
CONSERVATORY
If there was one thing above all others that made Sally Masterson and her husband Philip decide to buy the maisonette, it was the Victorian-style conservatory; an iron-framed structure with spangles of red and blue stained glass and french windows that opened out on to the elegant and well-stocked, if pocket-size, walled garden. The conservatory was lovely, bright, spacious, atmospheric: a special place, an arena.
They had no complaints about the rest of the property. They liked the fact that it provided living accommodation on two floors, ground and garden level. Sally liked the living room, especially the fireplace with its reproduction William De Morgan tiles. Philip was more impressed by the generously proportioned bedrooms, the wide hallway and the spacious en suite bathroom. All these factors had been persuasive enough, but it wasn’t until Sally saw the conservatory that she completely lost her heart. In fact, she loved it so much she had been prepared to postpone their honeymoon for the pleasure of moving straight into their new home.
Sally had not wanted to change much about the conservatory. She knew there were times when a space had to be left to express its own essential personality. Nevertheless she had felt the need to express her own personality at the same time, hence the huge bunches of dried herbs, her collection of novelty salt and pepper shakers and a kind of totem pole from somewhere in Canada. Apart from that all she’d had to do was get a few panes of glass replaced and have the frames painted. Decisions about furniture had been easy enough: a rattan sofa, a small perforated steel table and a couple of Rietveld zigzag timber chairs. The conservatory was now perfection, although she sometimes wondered about blinds or curtains to keep the neighbours at bay.
She would always vehemently deny that she was a snob. For example, it would have been possible, in fact it would have been all too easy, to claim that their new home was in Little Venice, but she made no such claim. She was quite happy to say she lived in Maida Vale. She knew that before long she would soon be moving on and up, but for now it would do, at least so long as she had her totally perfect conservatory.
It was early; seven in the morning. She had risen, showered and had put on only underwear and stockings. She was now seated at the steel table in the conservatory drinking laceratingly strong black coffee. Philip was out taking his daily early-morning jog. She looked at her watch and saw that he was a little behind schedule. A familiar irritation surged through her.
Sally was a trim, well-groomed, slighdy boyish blonde. Her hair was cut into a short no-nonsense bob. Her breasts were small and her legs were long. Her eyes were a soft blue and her mouth was thin-lipped though pleasantly curved. When not in her underwear and stockings, her style of dress could be a little severe, and it was possible to think she was, austere, asexual, but that would have been a terrible mistake.
At last, with some relief, she heard the front door open and close, heard Philip’s weighty feet on the ground floor landing, heard him descending the stairs to the lower level. He stood in the doorway between the breakfast room and the conservatory, breathing a shade heavily. He was sweaty and oxygenated. She loved it.
He said, “Now?”
She said, “Yes. Now. Of course. Here and now. Quickly.”
Philip Masterson was a good-looking man, not film star good-looking, not good-looking in a way that meant he, or Sally, would ever have to fight off women; but when she first presented him to her girlfriends they all agreed that she had got herself a chunky handsome husband. He was dark and hirsute. There was thick hair on his head, arms and back, and there were many occasions when he needed to shave twice in a day. He was perhaps a little overweight for some tastes, which was surprising given that he took so much exercise; squash and swimming and occasional football, as well as the jogging. But he had a strong, big-boned frame and Sally thought he carried his bulk easily.
He smiled roguishly and went into the conservatory to where Sally was ready and waiting for him. He went up to her, slid his hand inside her white lace briefs and pressed his big hot palm against her belly. She quaked with familiar expectation. She helped him off with his T — shirt, shorts and jock strap. She let him kick aside his own shoes and socks while she lowered her panties, folded them and placed them neatly on the unused chair. That was all she would be taking off. He would be hot and unshaven, laced with sweat, and she would be cool in white bra and sheer stockings. They wouldn’t do any kissing, since that would destroy her make-up, but she was happy to be, in fact insisted on being, mauled, thrown around, thoroughly fucked.
He began by pulling her to her feet and dragging her over to the rattan sofa. He touched her neck, breasts, stomach, and moved himself so that his penis came into handy proximity of her mouth. She took it in her hand, firmly and quite fondly, but she pushed it away to avoid smearing her lipstick, then she got up from the sofa, finding it too soft and comfortable.
Philip took her by the wrists and spun her round. He squeezed her bottom before pulling her to him, snaking his hands around her and directing her towards the french windows. Her finely manicured hands grabbed the door handles. She braced herself, her head arched forward and Philip eased her thighs apart, stroked her investigatively before penetrating her.
His actions were athletic, strong, purposeful, deeply felt. Sally’s face was tight, grimacing, fierce. You might have looked at that face and thought she wasn’t enjoying this very much, but that would have been another mistake.
And she enjoyed herself even more as Masterson prised her away from the doors and they inched their way slowly, a little awkwardly, into the centre of the conservatory. They had to disconnect briefly and Masterson took the opportunity to sink to his knees and Sally went dog-like in front of him, her buttocks high, her legs wide apart. His hands gripped her hips as though they were conveniendy placed handles of flesh and bone. His rhythm remained slow and constant, unhurried but insistent. He was prolonging the experience rather than hurrying it along and bringing it to its conclusion. This was not quite right for Sally.
She turned her head to make brief eye contact with him, and as she fixed him with her glance she said, “That’s not hard enough, you bastard,” and that spurred him on no end. He pushed her head down with the flat of his hand so that she fell all the way forward, her torso flattening and slipping against the cool smooth expanse of the conservatory’s pink sandstone tiles. He dragged her back towards him in a charade of savagery and mastery and he finished off with a few hard, ferocious strokes, not great in number but putting all he’d got into each of them and into her. When she knew he was coming then she could let herself go too, and as she climaxed she yelled, “Oh, Mummy.”