Питер Джеймс - Left You Dead

Grace swung his glasses in the direction of the Fiesta, and a few seconds later the distinctive figure of Niall Paternoster appeared on the far side of the vehicle. Grace watched as he hurried across the road and headed over the grass towards Rebecca. She still didn’t turn round.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ Branson asked.

Grace didn’t reply, he was watching intently. Again thinking back to the words relayed by Sharon Orman. The rendezvous between Rebecca Watkins and Niall Paternoster. Something at the time had felt wrong about it, and it felt even more wrong now, but he couldn’t say why. Something about Rebecca’s body language?

Through the green glow of the night vision, Grace watched Paternoster getting closer to her. Closer. Closer.

She still wasn’t moving, just staring ahead, like a statue. Rocking slightly in the wind.

Was she aware he was coming up behind her? Could Niall be about to push her over the edge? Was the sound of the wind making her unable to hear him? For a split-second Grace toyed with hitting the horn or flashing the lights to warn her and distract Paternoster. He braced himself, ready to leap out and run across. But he held himself in check, dismissing that thought. This was two lovers meeting. Their rendezvous. Their assignation . Meeting for sex according to the conversation Sharon Orman had lip-read in the pub.

But Grace still didn’t think that was all. Something else was going on, he was more and more certain. And hoping to hell he wasn’t going to be proved wrong.

The grass was wet and Niall Paternoster was only wearing suede loafers, his brand-new, very expensive, tasselled beige ones, and they were going to be ruined. They were already soaked through after just a few paces, making his bare feet inside them wet, too. His hair was being torn from its roots and his eyes were watering from the wind.

What was so special about a moonlit sea that was worth ruining his shoes for? If he’d known he was going to have to traipse through uncut grass, he’d have worn boots — he’d only put these on because they’d be easy to kick off. Who the hell wanted to waste valuable time undoing laces? Quick release! It was for the same reason, speed — as well as a surprise for her — and turn-on for him — that he’d gone commando tonight.

His foot squelched in something — mud, please God, not dog’s mess. Yech. Why was she putting him through this? He didn’t really give a monkey’s about the view, he’d not come all this way to look at that. The only view he wanted was Rebecca’s gorgeous face, while he held her body in his arms.

Honestly , he sighed to himself, striding on towards her, feeling excited and annoyed in almost equal measures. ‘Hey!’ he called out. ‘Hey, gorgeous! This view had better be worth it!’

She didn’t react. She just continued facing out to sea.

Was it the view that was distracting her? he wondered.

When he was just a few feet from her, about to put his arms around her, she turned sharply to face him, brandishing the umbrella like a weapon.

And he froze.

In the camper van, binoculars glued to his eyes, Roy Grace shouted, ‘Shit! That’s not Rebecca Watkins!’

‘It’s Eden,’ Branson said. ‘Jesus, what’s going on?’

‘We’re about to find out,’ Grace replied.

‘Nice to see you, Niall,’ Eden said. ‘But not that nice.’

He opened his mouth, too astonished for a moment to speak. Before he could get a word out, Eden, holding the point of the umbrella out in front of her, said, ‘Shut up a minute, just wait.’

‘What the hell is this about? What bloody game are you playing, Eden? Do you have any idea of the shit I’ve been through? Do you have any fucking idea?’

‘Whatever it is, it’s not enough for all the crap you’ve put me through.’

Despite shaking with nerves, she managed a smile, managed to keep the tremble out of her voice. That gulp of whisky she’d taken before leaving the car was helping, a lot. She gave him another very sweet smile. ‘Aren’t you pleased to see me? You don’t look very happy that I’m still alive.’

‘Very funny.’ He grimaced, his mind a furnace of fury. ‘Don’t push your luck, baby. This is just you and me. I could shove you over the edge right now, after you’ve set your disappearance up so cleverly. They’ll find your body in a few days and mark you down as a suicide. I’d have just left you dead. Have you thought about that? How it would look to anyone? You tried to frame your husband and, when that didn’t work, you decided to end it all?’

‘Oh yes, I’ve thought about it, Niall,’ Eden replied, speaking verbatim from the script Rebecca had written for her. ‘Which is why I’m wearing a wire, with every word you or I say being transmitted to a recording device at the Police HQ in Lewes. I saw the texts to your lover, whoever she is, where you talked about your plans to “get rid of” me.’

She saw the hesitation in his face and knew her words had struck home — enough to sow doubt about whether she was telling the truth or not. ‘Still going to shove me over the edge?’

‘Look, we need to talk,’ he said. ‘Like, those texts — they were just a joke, you know.’

‘Great joke, so funny, they had me in hysterics. Can’t remember when I laughed so much, Niall. Especially the bit about my will, thinking you would inherit everything when I was gone. And you and your lover had a plan. You told her you knew exactly how to kill me and dispose of my body so it would never be found. I particularly liked that bit where you told her that if the police couldn’t find a body, it made a prosecution very hard. A “no body” murder, I think you called it, right?’

He stared at her in numb silence.

‘So, I thought I would turn the tables. You deserve it. You killed our unborn baby and ruined my life, you evil bastard. Can a dead person commit a murder, Niall?’

‘There’s one flaw in that, Eden,’ he said, more calmly now. ‘The police don’t believe you’re dead.’

‘Obviously not if they’ve wired me with a mic.’ She smiled. ‘Do you want to hear what your lover told me, while we were in bed together?’

‘What?’ Now he stared at her both confused and dumbstruck.

Rebecca had told her exactly the words to say and the moves to make. Keep taunting him, ramping it up, and up again, until he lunged at her, and as he did so to instantly hit the ground. He would trip over her and be gone, over the edge.

But she couldn’t do it. She knew the words, what she had to say. The taunt about his manhood. The first time he’d ever hit her was when she had done that, and totally unintentionally then.

The script was so clear in her head now. She just had to say the words and he would lunge, he was that livid.

She also told me you couldn’t satisfy her.

But the words lodged in her throat. She couldn’t get them out.

Instead, she stared at him, at her husband, at the man she hated so much, on the edge of a 500-foot drop, knowing just how easily he could kill her, and that he could do it without any sense of remorse. But she was unable to spit out the words that would trigger him.

‘You don’t have a wiretap, Eden. You and I have watched enough police documentaries to know that. Police never put a key witness in danger like this. You’re lying. Bullshit. This is just you and me. No one’s listening. No one’s coming to save you. You’re lying about the police and Rebecca. Whatever your crazy plan is, your stupid ploy, you’ve actually just made it very easy for me.’

She froze. Her eyes adjusting more and more to the darkness. Staring at him, at the anger in his face.