He grinned at the object of his desire, waiting for the gift of her address, her phone number.
The blonde girl’s gaze narrowed at him.
‘You could leave it at our school, St John’s. It’s only in the village.’ She took the dark girl’s arm, pulling her after her, towards the lane, leaving him behind in the ditch.
‘Leave it for Bethan Avery.’ She tugged. ‘C’mon, Bee. We’re late.’
As they moved off, he had heard them murmuring, their voices carried further than they would have expected by the still flat air of the Fens.
‘Sorry about your cross. But what a creep.’
‘Aw, come on, Nat. He was only being friendly.’
He searched for hours before he found the necklace, glinting at the side of the lane. He had been about to give up. It was a sign, he realized, turning the fragile links over in his hands, running his finger down the cheap thin silver cross. It was a sign that fortune was finally answering his prayers. He squeezed the broken link in the chain closed with ease. The thing was probably worth a tenner, if that. Its value was clearly sentimental.
He didn’t reach the house until nearly eleven. The gardener, Malcolm, was already packing tools away and treated him to a curious wave.
Chris returned it, with a brusque good morning, but didn’t stop for conversation. He could barely breathe, the little silver necklace tucked into his fist. He retreated up into one of the first-floor bedrooms, and when he was sure Malcolm was gone, he thrust his hand into his unzipped jeans and worked himself frantically. Twice in the ditches by the lane had failed to slake his burning desire, had only increased it. He heard her voice again – ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen it, Mister?’ – that gentle entreaty, the way that Mister turned to Master in his memory, and it was over in seconds.
Later he turned the pages of his magazine, sprawled on the carpet, and the girls in the black and white photographs all had her face. He hung the necklace over the bedpost, so he could look at it and keep his hands free. The afternoon’s setting sun lit it into a little silver blaze, a star shining against the antique Jacobean wood.
Bethan Avery. Even her name was like music.
After all of these lonely years, these furtive gropings, there would be love at last. He could be anything she wanted. She was too young to know what she wanted, anyway, so he would be able to teach her, to mould her into whatever he desired. He imagined returning the necklace to her at some point during their special intimate times together, fastening it around her naked neck while she lifted her abundant dark hair up, and her pleased, grateful smile glowed more brightly than the silver.
He did not go to the school. That would have been madness. Instead he waited, hiding in plain sight, on pub benches and at bus stops, slowly piecing together her route home, his face hidden in newspapers as Bethan and her friend, who he took to calling The Gnat, sauntered by, too caught up in their girlish gossip even to notice him.
The Gnat left her on the corner of Church Road, and sometimes if their conversation had not quite finished, they could loaf there for hours, through the growing snow and rain, half-sat, half-leaning on the street sign, laughing at nothing, their hoods up over their heads. This both pleased and infuriated him – though it meant he spent more time with her, it also meant that some other man might see her there, as she twirled in her little grey school skirt, black cotton tights and cheap nylon coat, showing some dance move to The Gnat. Some spotty rival might appear and steal her away. When she was his girl, there would be no more exhibiting herself on street corners, that was for sure.
He didn’t have a car then – he’d been taught to drive in the Army, before he’d jumped/been pushed, though he’d never needed one – but he saw now that the time had come to get one, as surveillance was becoming impossible without it. There was nowhere to sit and wait on the rest of her route home without curtains twitching. All of this would be much easier with a car, especially now the bad weather had arrived, and sitting outdoors in it only attracted attention. Time to dip into his hoarded savings. He bought a neat but old Ford Fiesta from a taciturn man in a baseball cap on Milton Road, sold with the implicit understanding that it was going to fail its next MOT. Chris thought its sassy red colour might please her – and in any case, it suited his cover.
A plan had begun to form in his mind.
Snow fell and the freezing winds turned to ice. The Indian summer of a mere three weeks ago, when he’d first met Bethan, was little more than a memory. His hunger for her grew dangerously, explosively. He drove out to Ipswich, to Newmarket, to Norwich, picking up small, malnourished prostitutes he could pretend were her, thinking that soon, soon, he would have the real thing in his arms.
The rest of the time he spent working on the old priesthole below the main sitting room. It was filthy and full of layers of dead cobwebs – not suitable for a young girl – but he swept the flags, took measurements for a bed, a toilet, some soundproofing material. While he was sure that Bethan would come round, there was probably going to be a little girlish reluctance at first, until she understood the full force of the love and desire she had raised in him. And once she knew, how could she fail to return it? This was just a temporary measure, to stop her from running off home in a strop, he told himself. Once he was sure of her, he could move her into one of the main bedrooms. Or perhaps, considering her age and how near they were to her home, they could flee together, to the continent. Live together on the Costa del Sol, run a bar maybe. They’d serve runaway gangsters on the lam from England, who’d be unlikely to dob them in.
He lay in bed imagining scenarios where he mixed freely with these violent, dangerous men in their silk shirts and golden sovereign rings – besting them at poker, hiding their contraband from the corrupt Spanish police chief, defeating them in gun battles and being acclaimed their leader – and then returning to his adoring Bethan as she lay in bed, weeping at the thought of him almost being killed; vulnerable, tender, and entirely and utterly his.
Surely such love was worth risking everything for.
25
Chris waited, watching the police station in an agony of suspense. Bethan and her man had suddenly gathered themselves together and headed off in a hurry back to their car – a big Range Rover, a car for people with big heads, in his opinion – and he had followed them here at a discreet distance, which had been difficult considering how hot on the pedal the other man had been.
They’d parked round the back of the cop shop, then walked in through the front door.
Finally, Chris had pulled up in the car park opposite the police station – he didn’t know what they did in the offices the car park belonged to, it looked like law. In amongst the gleaming Beemers and Mercs his dusty blue Megane stood out, and he attracted jaundiced looks from the suits that walked past him. Parking in Cambridge was always hotly contested.
Well, let them try and contest it with him now. He had an illegally imported canister of Mace in the dashboard, which he kept in case any of the girls had ever required a little extra encouragement to get in the car for the first time, and he was in just the right mood to use it. After all, you couldn’t build proper relationships with all of your sweethearts at first – the world was full of nosy beggars and troublemakers, endlessly wanting to see ID or get you to sign in or run fucking criminal background checks. That was the latest thing – this is what you got for volunteering to help underprivileged kids in today’s society; no wonder the country was going to the fucking dogs – sometimes you had to admire your girl from afar before you were ready to let her into your life. Sometimes that was safest – for both of you.