Quintin Jardine - On Honeymoon With Death

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘But did he?’

‘What do you mean? I’ll bet I’m the best lay he ever had.’

‘I wonder if he’d think you were worth it now?’

She frowned at me, her anger turned to fear. ‘Why? What have you done?’

‘Less than I might have at another time. I might have done a hell of a lot more than just spread his nose all over his face. I told you, he was mouthing off at the Society do yesterday. Of course I let him have it.’

‘Stupid bastard!’

‘Who? Him, or me?’

‘Both of you!’

‘No. All three of us, you included. If you had told me, Prim, I’d have understood. I might have said that you’d dropped your knickers to spite your face, so to speak, but I’d have understood. Yet you didn’t, even though you had going on two years to bring it up. At first you even made a point of telling me you hadn’t been with anyone after me. Then you sort of let it slip that there had been one casual thing. Fine; that didn’t bother me.

‘Then we get married, come back here on honeymoon, and I find out that it was more than casual. You will agree that living together and making a baby is more than casual, will you? Still, I understood; I felt as guilty as sin, in fact.

‘But now, I find out about Steve Miller, not from you at all, but from the local grapevine and from him. Too right I filled him in, and you can blame yourself for that just as much as me. You set him up for it by not telling me, just as much as he did himself.’

‘So much for your understanding then,’ she murmured, bitterly. ‘You found out and you battered him.’

‘But that’s my whole point!’ I yelled at her, shoving myself up from the couch. ‘I didn’t find out from you! You even let us get married without telling me.’

‘And if I had?’

‘It would have made no difference. I might even have admired you, in a strange way.’

‘Now?’

‘Now, nothing. It’s none of my business, just as it never was. Yes, I was mad when I found out, but I took that out on Miller’s nose. End of story.’

I looked down at her. ‘It is the end of the story, isn’t it?’ I asked, quietly. ‘There’s nothing else I might hear around the pool at someone else’s party?’

She shook her head and said, ‘No.’

If she’d come out with everything then, I think I’d have told her about Susie, to clear all the decks. But she didn’t, so I didn’t, and I let it go at that, for that time. Life can be a bit of a poker game, you know. It might be against the rules, but it’s always comforting to know that you have an ace up your sleeve.

She stood up, and came to me. She took my hands in hers and laid her forehead on my chest. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m also very tired. I didn’t sleep at all on that flight; Nicky Johnson talked non-stop all the way across the US, and all the way across the bloody Atlantic. Can I go to bed?’

‘Sure you can,’ I said, ‘once I make it up. I took the sheets off to be washed. Have yourself a drink, while I go and do that.’

She nodded and headed off towards the kitchen. I trotted upstairs and found a fresh fitted sheet from the linen cupboard; to be on the safe side, I changed the duvet cover as well. The room smelled fresh enough, but I raised the shutter and opened the window slightly, just to be on the even safer side.

When I went downstairs, Prim was on the couch once more. She was asleep, and the gin and tonic which she held was about to slip from her fingers. I took it from her, put it on the table and picked her up. As I carried her to bed it occurred to me that I had hefted enough weight up those stairs over the last few days for it to be classed as part of my work-out programme.

I turned back the duvet on Prim’s side of the bed, laid her down and undressed her. As I tossed her knickers on to the pile of clothing on the floor, she came half awake. ‘Get in?’ she murmured, half request, half question. I realised that I was tired too.

I hadn’t been sure of the time we’d gone to sleep, but when I came back to the surface, it was just after five in the evening. The fresh air from the open window was overcoming the heating, and the room felt chilly. I got up to close it, then wakened Prim, not wanting her to sleep so long that she’d be awake all night.

She smiled at me, and I felt sorry about our confrontation. I couldn’t have handled it worse, and I knew it. ‘Hi,’ she whispered. ‘How are things?’

‘My thing’s fine. How’s your thing?’

She laughed and opened her arms to me. ‘Missing your thing. Come here.’

I had been half afraid that it would have been different; it wasn’t. Well it was, different from Susie, that is, but I forced myself to look on her as a closed chapter in my life. With Prim it was as good as ever, with maybe, even, an added touch of wickedness. ‘One size fits all, indeed,’ I whispered in her ear as I thrust into her. ‘Poor bastard, that’s all he knows.’

We showered together and dressed, then realised how hungry we were. I made a sandwich to keep us going, we watched some television, then at around eight we drove into L’Escala for a pizza in La Dolce Vita, up there in a window seat watching the traffic. We had just been presented with two pizza sorpresas when Prim glanced outside, then did a double take. I followed her eyes and saw that she was looking at a Lotus Elise with British plates, its top open even in January. The driver was jammed behind the wheel, wearing a heavy jacket, and distinguishable by a white plaster over his nose. I didn’t know whether he had seen us or not, but, sure as hell, I didn’t wave.

‘Just think,’ I said, with a certain amount of acid in my tone, but not enough to spoil the taste of the pizzas, ‘if you had played your cards right, all that could have been yours.’

‘I’ll stick to the Mercedes, thanks,’ my wife replied, with a smile which made me decide that whatever I knew about her, I would do my best to forget it.

‘It’s a pity about Susie,’ she murmured, a little later, after we had found and dealt with the surprises in our pizzas. ‘I’d have liked to have seen her. Just why did she go home, Oz?’

I was sure that the question was completely straight; that no suspicion lay behind it.

‘I told you, she felt awkward. After the thing with Miller yesterday, she got scared that people might start to gossip about us.’

‘You took her to the party?’

‘Of course. We had dinner at Shirley’s on Friday; she suggested it.’

‘I’m not surprised she went, then, after what you did to poor Steve.’

I frowned at her, not in jest at all, even if she thought it was. ‘You call him poor Steve again and you and I will have another row. I was protecting your tattered reputation, remember.’

She made a face at me; just like the old times. ‘Thank you, sir. But what did Susie say?’

‘Nothing. She was a bit surprised that good old Oz could have done such a thing, and that I was so good with the head; but then, I’ve been coached by professionals.

‘Actually, there was another reason why she went home. It has to do with a piece of business out here that’s gone sour on her.’ I filled her in on the Castelgolf fiasco, and on its resolution. Naturally, I said nothing about her other misadventure.

‘That’s terrible,’ Prim exclaimed. ‘Two million down the toilet!’

‘Probably so. They might trace the money, but it’s touch and go. The man Fowler will be under deep cover by now; they’ve more chance of finding Lord Lucan than him.’

‘I’m really surprised,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that Susie’d have fallen for a scam like that.’

‘Both her partners were heavy hitters, apparently. I think that helped to persuade her. Anyway, it was an investment; some pay off, others crash. As for the amount, it would be a disaster to you and me, but not to her. She’s still rolling in it.’