Хилари Боннер - A Kind Of Wild Justice

He seemed awkward, too. He took off his jacket and tie, and stood looking at her. She had not even removed her jacket. The only furniture in the room apart from the narrow bed and a small fitted wardrobe was a single hard wooden chair. She too was standing, over by the window, half pretending to be looking out at the street below through its grubby metal-framed panes.

He crossed the room to her, turned her towards him, wrapped his arms round her and kissed her. A proper kiss. Full on the lips. She felt their bodies melt together, just as they had always done — without either of them appearing to move, really. He was a good kisser. One of the few men she had known who actually enjoyed kissing and for protracted periods of time. The years seemed to disappear. The magic had not gone. It was as if it were only yesterday that they had last been together like this.

He drew away from her. ‘Undress for me,’ he said, smiling.

The same words he had used the very first time so long ago, the same command. The same husky voice. She knew he had done it quite deliberately, but she was moved nonetheless. At least he had remembered. But then, would either of them ever forget? She supposed that was what this was all about.

So she did what she was told, just as before. Slipping her clothes off, no game playing, no stripper antics, just slowly removing her jacket, her trousers, her silk T-shirt and her underwear, until she stood naked before him. She wasn’t self-conscious any more. Strange, that. But from the moment he had come to her and kissed her it had all felt so natural again.

He gazed at her appreciatively. ‘God, but you’re still beautiful,’ he whispered.

She knew that her body looked good, thanks to those workouts at the gym, but she loved hearing the words from him.

He took her hand in his and drew her to the bed, made her sit down and kneeled before her. Still fully clothed, he buried his head in her. Something else she began to remember was how good this had been with him, just how good it had all been. And how much it had always made her want more, and more.

Eventually he stood up and began to take off his shirt and trousers. Standing right above her looking down at her, there was great longing in his eyes.

‘I’m not sure how able I am going to be,’ he began. She liked to think of him being just a little uncertain. He had always been so sure of himself before.

As he was climbing out of his trousers she reached out and touched him. ‘I don’t think we’ll have any problems,’ she said.

And they didn’t. He wasn’t the super stud he had been twenty years earlier. However, she hadn’t expected him to be. They were both slower and more lingering in their approach to their lovemaking. She had wondered, even as they rode in the taxi from the restaurant, whether it might be a let-down after so many years. Perhaps even half wished that it would be — after all, that would probably at least ensure that their renewed relationship would not become a problem. But it wasn’t a let-down at all.

They soon found the narrow bed too confining. They half rolled on to the floor using the duvet cover as a kind of mattress and the pillows to help them find more imaginative positions. She was a bit surprised they still had the athleticism, but they also spent quite lot of time just lying very still in each other’s arms. And that was sweet too. She felt the sense of belonging she had always felt with him and tried very hard to dismiss it, because it really could not be. She could never belong to Fielding. Not now. Maybe the truth was that she never could have done.

Because of the growing strain between her and Paul it was weeks since she’d had sex at all, let alone sex as good as this. It was just so mind-bogglingly good still — which was disconcerting as well as wonderful.

Perhaps it was because they were older, perhaps because they had both wanted it so much, perhaps because of the almost subconscious desires we all get from time to time to slip back into our own pasts — whatever the reason, to her it seemed better than ever.

She left the room first. He hadn’t told her that he was going home to Exeter that night. That would have given the game away, made her realise that he had booked the hotel specifically for the purpose for which they had used it.

He had wanted her so much, yet, like her, had thought that maybe he wouldn’t mind too much if the sex hadn’t been that good. He really didn’t need any further complications in his life right now and Joanna Bartlett had always been a complication for him. But the sex had been sensational. Like it always used to be. The best he had enjoyed in years. The best since the last time with her, if he were honest. It had always been what had drawn them together. He might have considered himself a bit of a stud in the old days and certainly his enthusiasm had been limitless, but with her it always seemed that sex reached a unique level of excitement and fulfilment. It was them, together, that did it. Something special. Something indefinable. Something undeniable. And it hadn’t changed. It was still there.

He liked the look of her, the feel of her and, by God, he adored the taste of her. He wondered if he were still in love with her — indeed, if he had ever stopped being in love with her. He knew that he wanted to see her again, but just like the first time he was afraid of seeing too much of her.

He comforted himself that geography and both their other commitments, particularly hers, would probably look after that for them. It was unlikely that they would be able to meet very often, even if they both wanted to. He knew that this time it would not be like before. That at best it would be no more than occasional snatched meetings. Never again would they dream of being properly together. That, at least, was over.

In July 2001 Shifter Brown stood trial at Exeter Crown Court. He didn’t stand a chance of leniency. Not under the most intense police pressure, nor in court, would he say who paid him to kill Jimbo O’Donnell. He was sentenced to the mandatory life for murder and the judge recommended that he serve a minimum of twenty-two years. It was even worse than Shifter had expected, perhaps, but he had resolutely refused the one piece of information that could have helped. There was no jury, because Shifter pleaded guilty, and the hearing lasted only two days. Joanna went to Exeter to cover it, arriving the day before the proceedings began and leaving the day after.

Until then, she and Fielding had been together just three times during the four months which had passed since their afternoon in the Southampton Row hotel room. Geography had indeed taken care of it. That and fear.

Joanna had a very practical side to her. She did not want to wreck her marriage or her life. In her mind she had tried to think of Fielding as a failed policeman, a bit of a sad case. But there was nothing failed or sad about Mike when they were making love. She had been forced to admit that regardless of his failings and what she knew he regarded as the failure he had made of almost everything except, most perversely, perhaps his marriage, he remained the love of her life. That frightened her. Perhaps it had been partly curiosity that had led her to that Southampton Row hotel room. She wasn’t sure. Partly anger at her husband, of course, no doubt about that. But she hadn’t really expected the old feelings to be quite as intact and it had been something of a shock.

She couldn’t stop herself sleeping with Fielding whenever the opportunity presented itself, although she was not prepared to take any silly risks. It seemed he felt the same. So they had to settle for very occasional torrid afternoons.

The trial, however, gave them, albeit for such a short time, almost unlimited opportunity.