'Some janitor!'
'It was only a job to him; he told me it was just something to keep money coming in while he set up the business. Then he asked me to be his partner.'
'Using false names?' Mcllhenney exclaimed.
'He told me that he didn't want any hassle from the education authority; I thought that made sense, so I agreed. It's not il egal, after all.'
'What about the insurance policies?'
'George told me it was common business practice for partners to insure each other.'
'Why weren't there any policies on you?'
'He said we could do that later after the business was established.
First, he said we had to set it up properly. I believed him, really, and then that awful thing happened, with that man.'
'When George shot my uncle, were you there too?' McGuire demanded.
'Your uncle?'
'Beppe Viareggio.'
She shook her head, violently. 'I drove him there. I thought he was just going to talk to him about the lease. I didn't know about the murder until I read about it in the papers next day. George told me that it had to be done, that with him out of the way we were free and clear and able to go and join our money without anyone ever being any the wiser.'
'Okay,' McGuire snarled. 'So where is he now, this charismatic devil?
You were expecting him back, so where's he gone?'
'He said that he had one last thing to do, one last loose end to tie off.
He muttered something about someone who had crossed him a long time ago, and before he could go anywhere, he had to get even with her.'
Suddenly, it was the big superintendent who was trembling. 'Oh Christ,' he gasped. 'Oh Christ, Neil. He's gone after Maggie.'
74
The knock at the door was gentle, almost apologetic. She was in the kitchen when she heard it, in her towelling robe and almost dry from the shower, making herself a cup of hot chocolate to take upstairs to bed. For a moment she thought about ignoring it; she had heard nothing from Mario al day… not that she would have taken his cal if he had rung, but his failure even to try to contact her pained her, and made her wonder how much she had hurt him with her final withering remark.
She could guess where he had spent the night. It had been too late for him to go to Neil and Lou, and he had never in his life been one to run home to mother. So Paula's it must have been, and in the mood he had been in there was no doubting either what had happened. Stil. ..
She can't be as good a lay as everyone imagines, she found herself thinking, if he s knocking on my door tonight rather than going back for more.
The gentle knock came again, a little louder but not much. 'Oh hel ,' she said aloud, and headed for the door.
When she saw who was standing there, her mouth fel open, and she stopped herself only a fraction short of collapse. She had forgotten, or made herself forget, many things about him over the years. How blue were his eyes, how cold, how hard and how merciless. How deep was his tan, some of it complexion, the rest the result of years in the sun. How rough were his hands. How brutal he had been, as he invaded her. And most of all, she had forgotten, until that moment, just how much he terrified her.
He stood there with a terrible smile on his face. Not only was his beard gone, but his head was shaven, and gleaming, like a brown egg in the moonlight. He looked ageless; unchanged from the day he had left.
She was frozen as he stared at her, and as he brought the massive automatic, made bigger stil by its silencer, from behind his back.
'Well then, Margaret,' he murmured in the strange accent that had brought her terror then, as it did now, 'how you've grown. I've been watching you for a while, watching and waiting for that man of yours to leave you alone. And now he has. Ditched you final y, has he, for Miss Viareggio?' He moved towards her and she staggered backwards, helpless before him. 'Come on now, lass. Invite your daddy in.
'I've waited a long time to visit you again, you with your big mouth, you that couldn't keep a secret. I've waited a long time to pay you out.'
He moved into the darkened hal and closed the door behind him. Still she backed off, into the light of the living room, where the curtains were drawn. 'Superintendent now, I believe; he murmured. 'It counts for nothing now, my girl, for nothing before me.'
He jabbed the gun at her, then laughed as she flinched. 'Let's see how you've turned out then, woman.' He reached out, fast, with his left hand and tugged at the cord of her robe, ripping it from its loops, then staring at her as the garment fell open. 'Not bad, not bad; bigger than your mother, for sure. And now, we'll see what else. ..'
She stepped away yet again as he moved towards her; her foot caught in the hem of the dressing gown. It slipped from her shoulders, and she fell backwards, full-length, on the floor. She lay there, paralysed, staring up at her monster of a father as he towered over her.
75
The vestry door was open when she arrived, as Ian had said it would be.
There had been no other car in sight as she had parked the Jaguar, and so she assumed that she had made it there before him.
She was mistaken; there he sat in a wooden chair under the high vestry window, caught in the rays of the westbound sun, smiling as she entered the room, leaving the door ajar behind her. 'Thank you for coming,' he said, 'it's very important to me, much more important than you can guess.'
She looked at him, and that old feeling of lust swept over her. There had been so much she had not admitted to Bob, and never would. She could recall every one of the several lovers she had had in her life, since she and Ian Walker had deflowered each other in her freshman year at college, but none, not even Ron, her footballer, with such clarity as she remembered Terry Carter. The perfect, beautiful musculature of his body, the easy skill with which he had aroused her to frenzy, so often in their brief, energetic affair, his knack of entering her at exactly the right moment and his ability to stay there, all rock-hard velvet, holding himself back until she was absolutely ready for him to let go. Yes, she had been demanding of him. Yes, made bitter and revengeful by her husband's betrayal, for all the watered-down story she had told Bob eventual y, she had demanded plenty. Now, once more, in the vestry of a Lutheran church of all places, she could feel herself moisten at the very sight of him. She laid her capacious black leather bag on the carpeted floor, and knew that if he asked her, they would probably join it there.
Yet lust was all it had been. For all of his beauty and grace as a lover, she had never felt herself falling in love with him. There was something about him that had precluded that from the start, a distance kept between her and the real man inside him. And so she had gratified herself with him, readily and frequently, in friendship and without shame. In fact she had felt no guilt over their parting, as she had pretended to Bob; she had simply wanted to see him again.
He rose and she went to him. They kissed, briefly, then again, for longer. 'Hello Terry,' she murmured as they broke off their embrace.
'This was probably a lousy idea, but I'm glad I agreed to it.'
The too,' he said. 'How are you, Sarah? Are you happy back in Scotland with your policeman?'
She nodded. 'Yes, I am. He's the foundation I've always needed in my life. Not that I didn't appreciate the time we had together. That's why I said I would meet you, I suppose… to thank you in a way I never did before.'
'You thanked me every time we made love,' he told her. 'I'll never forget you. And much as I'd like to reprise those days, they're over, I'm afraid. You have something I need; the package Mr Oakdale gave you.'
He glanced at her bag and saw the long envelope, with its seal, sticking out of the open top. 'That's it, I guess.'