Хилари Боннер - A Kind Of Wild Justice

Her husband interrupted her. ‘Don’t insult my intelligence, Joanna,’ he told her. ‘I said I know. I know about the hotel in Southampton Row; I know that he spent every night with you when you were covering the Shifter Brown hearing in Exeter; I even know about your sleazy trip down to Taunton to the motorway motel. If you would like any more details I can assure you that I do have them.’

She realised at once that he must have had her followed. It was somehow typical of Paul that he could do that over an extended period and actually be able to say nothing, just live with what was going on, until he was ready to make a move. Any normal man would have confronted her long ago, she thought. She had often, by way of attempting to justify her affair, blamed Paul’s absence of passion, his calculating businesslike approach to all aspects of his life and his complete lack of spontaneity, for leading her into another man’s arms. She knew, of course, that was really no justification for her behaviour. She didn’t speak.

Apparently he did not expect her to.

‘It goes without saying that you end this affair immediately,’ he went on. ‘If you do not I will divorce you. Naturally you will lose your job. You will also lose your daughter. I will get custody, I promise you. You may well get access of some kind but I will make sure that it is as little as possible. And I will do my absolute best to turn Emily against you. For ever. I do not envisage that would be too difficult.’

He opened his briefcase, which had been at his feet by the table, and took out a large manila envelope. He waved it at her. ‘This is a very full and detailed account of your recent activities. I think if I showed it to our daughter she would make up her own mind, don’t you?’

Joanna felt very cold. She believed absolutely that he would and could do all he said, including showing such a dreadful dossier to his only child. She knew just how ruthless he could be when it came to getting his own way. And yes, she also knew that Emily would be quite capable of forming her own judgement of her mother’s behaviour and that it would be a damning one. Emily loved her mother, but she was her father’s daughter. Nonetheless, she told him, ‘I can’t believe you’d do that.’

‘Yes you can and do, Joanna.’ He emptied some of the contents of the envelope on to the table. There were even photographs of her and Fielding entering the Taunton motel, albeit separately, and together both entering and leaving the Southampton Row place. She didn’t give her husband the satisfaction of picking them up for a closer look, but as far as she could see there were none of her and Fielding actually in bed. Paul and his representative had mercifully drawn the line at that, it seemed.

‘You have too good a life to allow it to be spoiled,’ he went on. ‘And it will be spoiled, totally, if you don’t do as I tell you. You will be swapping all that you have, all that we have, for life with a failed, near-alcoholic, mid-rank copper. I do not actually think you have any idea what that would be like, Joanna.’

That made Joanna wince. The description of Fielding was accurate enough. She supposed she probably didn’t have any idea what it would be like to live out in the sticks on a very limited income with a disappointed and often angry man who habitually drowned his miseries in alcohol. Nor was she ever likely to — not even without Paul’s ultimatum, as it happened. That was the final irony. At the end of the day she doubted if Fielding would ever have tried to make a life with her, in any circumstances. Such small likelihood as there had been of them being properly together had ended almost twenty years before. And after their last confrontation over her trying to hack into his laptop, there had been barely a chance of the affair continuing, even without external intervention. Strange that Paul had decided to make his move at that moment.

‘I’m sorry, Paul,’ she said. ‘I really didn’t mean for any of this to happen.’

‘And you think that makes it all right,’ he said flatly.

‘No, of course I don’t.’

‘You’ve let me down, your daughter down and yourself down. Do you realise that?’

She nodded. She wished he wouldn’t lecture her but she supposed she deserved it. And he was right, of course. Cool. Logical. Controlled as ever. He sounded more as if he were admonishing a member of staff for some professional misdemeanour or negotiating a business deal than confronting his wife with infidelity. He showed absolutely no emotion at all. But then, he never did.

‘Look, Paul, I think it’s over anyway between Mike and...’ she began to explain.

‘You think?’ He raised his voice almost imperceptibly. ‘Joanna, I will give you twenty-four hours in which to assure me that you know it is over. If you cannot do that then I shall ask you to leave this house and I shall start divorce proceedings immediately. The decision is yours. But do not for one moment think that you can carry on cheating on me. I shall know at once.’

She didn’t doubt it. And she couldn’t understand how she had thought she would ever get away with it in the first place. Not with Paul. He was just too clever. Too astute. She supposed the truth was that she hadn’t thought at all.

Paul had started speaking again. ‘I shall sleep in the spare bedroom tonight,’ he told her almost conversationally.

She found herself once again comparing him with Fielding, that infuriating, emotionally confusing man whom, she had to admit, she had probably half loved for over twenty years. Fielding would have screamed and shouted, ranted and raved, wept, maybe even hit her. He had never actually done that but she had seen his temper, always suspected him capable of violence if sufficiently provoked. He would have confronted her, probably while drunk, the moment he had any suspicion that she had cheated on him. He would have been irrational and illogical and very, very human. He was always that. Human.

Her husband, on the other hand, seemed to be as cold and as matter-of-fact as ever. His behaviour towards her indicated on one level that he loved her very much. The very fact that he was fighting to keep her in the way that he was, that he would be prepared even to keep her in the circumstances, demonstrated that, she supposed. And yet, as ever, there was something about the way he went about things which was barely human at all. Jo would have preferred an explosive no-holds-barred row. Much preferred that. Come to think of it, they had never had one of those throughout their marriage.

She felt overwhelmed with a deep, abiding sorrow. She couldn’t help questioning Paul’s motives, which was terrible. After all, she was the one at fault. Paul wouldn’t want a scandal, of course. His impending knighthood was almost certainly a factor in his determination to keep her.

Her head ached. She did feel guilty about having deceived Paul, but not as guilty as she suspected she should. She did not even know whether she still loved him. In fact, she was not sure whether she had ever loved him, not really, certainly not in the way in which she had loved Fielding. But her husband had left her with no choice. ‘It’s all right, Paul, I don’t need twenty-four hours,’ she said. ‘I will end it tomorrow.’

He watched her leave the room and head upstairs for bed, then he went to the drinks cupboard and poured himself a stiff whisky, which he carried into the garden, shutting and locking the kitchen door behind him. He walked across the lawn, past the copse of young fruit trees, to a small wooden shed at the far end. The night was brightly moonlit and he was able to see his way quite clearly. Inside the shed, however, it was pitch-black. A single electric light bulb hung from the wood-panelled ceiling, but he did not switch it on. He did not need to, and he welcomed the blackness which enveloped him when he closed the door. Paul knew where everything was in this shed. It was as orderly as everything in his mind, in his office, in his home, indeed in his life. The mower was to the left, alongside a couple of neatly folded garden chairs and on the right, carefully stacked, were sacks of fertiliser, plant pots and all manner of other gardening paraphernalia. He felt his way to the little wooden stool he kept in the right-hand corner and sat down.