Elizabeth George - In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

He'd found her in their bedroom, nodding away in her white wicker rocker next to the window, with a sword's width of illumination from the streetlight outside falling across her left shoulder and gilding her breast. She was completely nude, and an oval cheval mirror, drawn near to the rocker, reflected the ghostly perfection of her body.

He'd said, “What the hell are you doing, Tricia?” not entirely unpleasantly, since he was, after twenty years of marriage to the woman, quite used to finding his wife in an array of conditions: from dressed to the nines in a little designer number that cost a small fortune, to tucked up in bed at three o'clock in the afternoon wearing Babygro and sucking on a bottle of piña colada. So at first he'd thought she'd arranged herself for his delectation. And while he hadn't been in the mood to fuck her, he'd still been capable of acknowledging that the money he'd spent on Beverly Hills surgeons had been cash invested with visually enjoyable results.

But that thought had died like a candle's flame in a draught when Martin saw how far his wife was gone on the stuff. While her shit-induced semi-somnolence generally inspired him to take her in that master-of-the-rag-doll fashion which he vastly preferred when coupling with any woman openly willing to receive his ministrations, the afternoon and evening hadn't worked out according to his plans, and he knew the workings of his body and his mind well enough to realise that if he roused himself to take another woman today-especially one who wouldn't put up a gratifying fight against him-it wasn't going to be a female whose range of response was similar to that of a bottle of plasma. That would hardly provide him with the distraction he'd been looking for.

So at first he'd dismissed both her and the possibility of receiving a coherent answer to the question he'd asked her. And he'd ignored her altogether when she'd murmured, “Got t'go t'Melbourne, Marty. Got t'get's there straightaway.” Typical strung-out nonsense, he'd thought. He went into the bathroom, turned on the shower to heat up, and lathered his hands beneath the tap, soothing both his knuckles and his face with the creamy soap that Tricia favoured.

By the window, she spoke again, this time louder so as to be heard over the rush of water. “S’ I made some calls. T'see wha’ iss cost us to go. Soon's we can, Marty. Babe? You hear tha?’ Got t'go t'Melbourne.”

He went to the doorway, drying his hands and face gently on a towel. She saw him, smiled, and ran her manicured fingers up her thigh, across her stomach, and teasingly round her nipple. The nipple hardened. She smiled wider. Martin did neither.

“I wonder 'bout the heat in 'stralia,” she said. “I know you don't much fancy heat. Bu’ we got go t'Melbourne 'cause I promised him.”

Martin had begun to take her more seriously at that. It was the him that caught his attention. “What are you talking about, Tricia?”

She said with a pout, “No’ list'ning, Marty. I hate it when you don't listen to me.”

Martin knew the importance of keeping his voice pleasant, at least for the moment. “I am listening, darling. Melbourne. The heat. Australia. A promise. I've heard it all. I just don't understand how it fits together and what it relates to. Perhaps if you'll explain…?”

“What it relates to-” She waved airily round the room at everything and at nothing. Then she changed gears abruptly in that Jekyll-Hyde move so common to loadies, saying scornfully, “You soun' like such a poof, Marty. ‘P'rhaps if you'll 'splain…’”

Martin's reservoir of patience was nearly depleted. Another two minutes of verbal blind man's buff and he was likely to throttle her. “Tricia, if you've something of importance to relate, tell me. Otherwise, I'm taking a shower. All right?”

“Ooohhh,” she mocked. “He's taking a shower. And I 'spect we know why if we sniff him up. We know what we'll smell. So who was it this time? Which one of the ladies di' you have today? An' don' He 'bout it, Marty, 'cause I know what's what with you ‘n’ the girls. They tell me, y'know. They even complain. Which, I 'spect, you'd never think of them doing, would you?”

For a moment Martin considered believing her. God knew there were times when the act of simply demanding and taking what wasn't on offer wasn't enough to satisfy him. Every now and then events piled one upon the other in such a way that only a certain level of ferocity was able to compensate him for his lack of control over the countless daily irritations that swirled round him like gnats. But Tricia didn't know that beyond a shadow of a doubt, and there wasn't a single girl in his stable who'd be stupid enough to tell her. So Martin turned away from his wife without making a response to her remark. He stripped off his shirt in preparation for his shower.

She said from the bedroom, “So say bye-bye. Bye-bye to all this. You ready to do that, Marty?”

He unzipped his trousers and let them drop to the floor. He peeled off his socks. He made no reply.

She went on, calling, “He said if we wen’ t’ stralia, you and me, he'd keep his mug shut 'bout the bus'ness. So I ’spect that's what we got to do.”

“He.” Martin re-entered the bedroom, clad only in his shorts. “He?” he said again. “Tricia, he?” Within his gut, a roiling began: a nascent nausea suggesting that something previously inconceivable might actually have happened in the time during which he'd left his wife alone in the house.

“Righ’,” she said. “Just like a chocolate bar, he was. And just as sweet, I ’spect, if I'd wanted t’ try him. He di'n't come with that cow this time round, so I could've, I s'pose. Only he di'n't come alone.”

Jesus, Martin thought. They'd come back, the bastards. And they'd got into the house. And they'd talked to his airhead nitwit of a wife.

He strode over to the rocker. He knocked her hand from her breast. “Tell me,” he said sharply. “The police were here. Tell me.”

She said, “Hey!” in protest and reached for her nipple again.

He caught her fingers in his hand. He squeezed them till the bones ground together like brittle twigs. He said, “I'll cut it off. You like that pretty tit of yours, I think. You wouldn't want it to go missing, would you? So tell me right now or I won't answer for the consequences.” And just to make certain she understood, he moved his clasp from her fingers to her hand and then to her wrist. A good twist, he'd found long ago, was worth a hundred lashes. And more important, it didn't leave a significant mark to show Mummy and Daddy later.

Tricia cried out. He increased the torque. She shrieked, “Marty!” He said, “Talk.” She tried to slither from the rocker to the floor, but he had the better position and he straddled her. An arm across her throat and he had her head flung back into the wicker chair. “Do you want more?” he asked. “Or is this enough?”

She opted for the second. She told the story. He listened with incredulity mounting, wanting so much to pound in his wife's face that he wasn't quite sure how he'd keep himself from doing it. That she'd let the cops in the house in the first place bordered on the absolutely fantastic. That she'd spoken to them about the escort service ventured into the unbelievable. But that she'd actually given them the name and address of Sir Adrian Beattie-just blithely handed it over without even considering what it meant to break the confidence of a man whose peculiar needs had been serviced by Global Escorts in the past and whose same peculiar needs would want servicing by Global Escorts anew now that the Maiden tart was finally out of the way-constituted such an act of insanity that Martin didn't know how he could contain his fury.