Twenty-five years later she could still hear the clamour of Pelham Bay at play on that busy summer Sunday. She could smell the tang of the salt in the air and taste the very vinegar of the sea. And once more she heard and smelt and tasted all else that came later.
Jennifer Stone was not the only one who read that local paper story with special interest.
In his penthouse flat overlooking the River Thames, Sir Marcus Piddell was enjoying his breakfast. There was freshly squeezed orange juice, espresso coffee and that morning’s croissants from the best baker in town, brought to him as usual by his daily, who was presently engaged in making his bed. It was unseasonably warm and he was sitting on the terrace in a Victorian rocking chair, his Gucci-clad feet resting on the rail. God, he was feeling good. Last night they had sent around a couple of girls from his favourite Soho sex club again. He always felt more awake and alive than ever after a night of strenuous, imaginative sex. It recharged his batteries. There was a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach and his genitals were still tingling inside his jockey shorts. He shut his eyes and began to relive last night’s pleasures. It was almost as if he were touching the warm tender flesh again. A sudden sense of the tastes and the smells he had experienced overwhelmed him. He felt himself growing. When he was an adolescent the size of his sexual organs had actually embarrassed him. But not for long. He smiled at the memory, and reached down to his crotch to adjust slightly the bulge there. That was better. He could still think himself into an erection without even meaning to. Not bad for a man of forty-eight. The Soho joint was so much easier than a relationship — and they knew what he liked. He supposed he was taking a risk. But, what the hell! He was an unmarried man again, a free agent. Anyway he couldn’t help it. He never had been able to. He had always taken risks.
He stretched. Self-satisfied. Super-successful. He loved the mornings, especially bright mornings like this. Always had done. He had never needed much sleep, and he was grateful for that. There were two things he believed all successful people had in common. An ability to manage with very little sleep and a relentless sex drive. Well, he would think that. Marcus Piddell could not imagine anyone sleeping their life away, and he could not survive without regular and exciting sex tailored to his special desires.
He resisted the temptation to unzip his flies and reach in there to play with himself a little. He must stop thinking about last night’s excesses or he would never get any work done.
He had already listened to the early news bulletins on the radio and read all the national papers. He retained the journalist’s obsession with being well informed. He started to open the bundle of local papers from his Devon constituency. He had easily won the nomination as parliamentary candidate for his old stamping ground when the seat became vacant. Everybody knew how they like local-born men and women to represent them in Devon. He had walked the election — even though the story of his name change became a running joke in the press. They had a field day relating how plain Mark had suddenly become classier Marcus, and, most amusing to them of all, how Piddell had once been spelt P-I-D-D-L-E and pronounced accordingly — but only the papers he didn’t control, of course, and it had not seemed to do him any harm. He was still a local boy made good. His rise to fame and fortune had been fast, and the new name — with emphasis firmly on the second syllable merely something he picked up along the way. A flashier by-line, better sounding on the phone — and above all, no longer a name people laughed at.
When he stood for election, he was the chairman of Recorder Group Newspapers, a multi-millionaire businessman with enormous influence. Many of his contemporaries had been surprised that he should want to enter Parliament. Marcus simply saw it as the next step. He’d had to resign the Recorder chairmanship when he became a government minister, of course, but that had made little practical difference. He still owned by far the majority shareholding in the group, and there was nobody at R.G.N. who doubted that he remained the only real boss.
He quite fancied being prime minister. That was his true motivation and, always brashly confident, he saw no reason why he should not be PM, certainly well before he was fifty-five, which was still seven years away. That would give him at least ten years before his energy started to go. It would go, he supposed, although he could not really imagine that.
He glanced at his watch. Still only eight o’clock. Plenty of time to scan the constituency news sheets before his car arrived at eight-thirty to take him to the House. He liked to be at his office there before nine, even when he had stayed in the chamber till two or three that same morning. It unnerved the others a bit. They hadn’t cut their teeth on daily newspapers like him. As an editor for almost ten years, he had developed the stamina to guide the last editions onto the presses in the early hours of the morning and then be back in the office before half the day shift had arrived. Kept ’em on the alert that way.
He opened the Durraton Gazette first. He always did. Extraordinary to think that he virtually owned it now. He chuckled to himself. It wasn’t a bad old rag. It never had been. Then he spotted the second story on the front. Not even the lead. Old Bill Turpin was dead and the police were going to reopen inquiries into the Pelham Bay murder and the disappearance of a second young woman at the same time. He was just five hours ahead of his ex-wife in North Devon, reading that same insignificant local paper article.
It shook him to the toes of his Yves St Laurent silk socks.
Like Jennifer, he scanned the story with professional speed. Like Jennifer, he was looking for mention of something more. His eyes flicked down the page. Nothing to worry about. Not yet. He realised he had been holding his breath. He let it out with a rush. He could breathe again. At least for now.
Marcus made himself stay calm. He resolutely carried on reading through the other newspapers in his pile. At this stage in his career he could do without the reappearance of any ghosts from his past, however loose the link with him might appear to be and from however long ago. But he was a true survivor, and the story had not even made the nationals yet. It would do so, though, he was sure of that.
He picked up the draft of the speech he was to give in the House that afternoon. He put it down again.
His mind slipped back over the years — to the very beginning of his obsession with Jennifer Stone. He could see his white Mini Cooper parked outside the big Victorian house on the hill in which he rented a tiny flat, high above Pelham Bay. He could still see his girlfriend, Irene Nichols, so willing and compliant, lying, eternally grateful for almost any kind of attention, in his bed; and in his head, twenty-five years on, he heard the ring of the old black telephone calling him out on the murder inquiry. Down to the beach to see Bill Turpin.
Marcus could not help himself. He was right there in Pelham Bay with Jennifer, poor little Irene, and all the rest of them, on that hot August Sunday in 1970.
In his new bungalow overlooking the sea above Pelham, proud father Johnny Cooke was also doing battle with the past. There were many who could not understand how Johnny had felt able to return to Pelham Bay after all that had happened. But where else could he have gone?
Johnny hugged his sleeping son so tightly the little boy started awake and began to whimper.
A couple of days earlier, Johnny Cooke had been checking the week’s accounts when the phone rang. It was the new detective inspector in Durraton. Johnny immediately felt the familiar sweaty-palm sensation, and that blankness came over him again. Could he pop down to the station, the inspector wanted to know?
Johnny was suddenly very cold. Sweating, but cold. He had become an established local businessman. True, he was struggling to keep everything afloat as the recession took its toll on the holiday trade, but he was pretty sure he could hold it together. Was his world now going to be destroyed all over again?