Peter James: Dead Simple

Ashley, in a Prada denim trouser suit and high heels, standing between her suitcases in the living room of the small detached house in Newhaven, placed her hands defiantly on her hips and stared out of the window. The view from the rented house's remote hilltop position took in almost the whole of the town, and much of the port that was part of it. She watched the Seacat cross-Channel ferry slipping past the harbour mole, heading out to sea. It was a flat, grey day, and humid; she was perspiring, which added to her bad mood, and her period was about to start, which made it even worse. She turned on him, her voice rising in acidity.

'Really? They have shops in Sydney? You mean shops you can walk into and buy things from?'

'Oh, fuck off, you stupid cow - don't speak to me like I'm some fucking servant.'

'You fuck off. Why should I leave all this stuff behind? This is my life.'

'What do you mean this is your life?' At five foot, seven inches, Vic stood barely half an inch taller than Ashley, but he had always seemed to her to be much taller. He had the wiry, muscular build and the persona of a fighting man, with tattooed arms, crew-cut hair and a rough-hewn, handsome face. His clothes added to his military persona; at this moment he was dressed in a combat jacket over a black T-shirt, baggy khaki chinos and what could have been black marching boots. 'Do you mean Michael is your life? Mark? These two gits have been your life, is that what you mean? Have I got something wrong here -1 thought I was your life, you stupid bitch.' 'I thought you were too,' she said tightly, holding back tears. 'So what the fuck does that mean?' 'Nothing,' she said. He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her round to face him.

'Alex, relax, OK. We're nearly there, home free; let's just calm right down.' 'I'm perfectly calm/ she said. 'You're the one who's all wired.' He pulled her towards him. Stared into her green eyes. Then tenderly pushed some stray strands of her hair back up her forehead.

'I love you,' he said. 'I love you so much, Alex.'

She put her arms around his neck, pulled his lips up against hers and kissed him passionately for some moments. "I love you too, Vic. I always have.'

'And yet you happily went off and screwed Mark, then Michael. And a whole bunch of guys before them.'

She stepped back angrily and almost fell over a suitcase. 'Jesus Christ, what's got into you?'

'What's got into me? We've fucked up this time, that's what. OK?'

'We haven't fucked up, Vic; we have a result.'

'A lousy one-point-two million quid? Half a year of our lives for that?'

'Neither of us could have foreseen what was going to happen the crash.'

'We should have played it differently. You could have got Michael out, gone through with the wedding, and then we'd have had half his money, and his partner's.'

'And that would have taken months, Vic - maybe years. They still have some planning issues on their big development. As it is, we got a quick result. And if you hadn't gambled away half our goddamn money, we wouldn't have even needed to be here at all in the first place, OK?' Sheepishly, he looked at his watch. 'We have to get going if we're going to make the flight.'

'I'm ready.'

'You don't have any idea how fucking painful this stuff is for me, Alex, do you? What we do? My sitting on the sidelines, knowing this year you're screwing Michael and Mark, before that you were screwing that jerk Richard in Cheshire, not to mention Joe Kerwin and Julian Warner.'

'I can't believe I'm hearing this, Vic. I did what I did because that was my part of our bargain, OK?'

'No, not OK.'

'You've always had your sweet revenge on them in the end - so what's your problem? And this way, I get to spare you and me from a honeymoon with Michael.' He looked at his watch again, anxiously.

'We'll talk in the car -I have one more thing to do before we leave.' He lugged her suitcases out into the hall, then went back into the sitting room and moved the sofa right across the room. Then he knelt down and peeled back a corner of the carpet.

'Vic,' she said. He looked up. 'What?' 'Can't we just leave him?'

'Leave him?'

'He's not going anywhere, is he? He's not going to get out - he can't even speak, you said.'

'I'm going to finish him off, put him out of his misery.'

'Why not just leave him? No one's ever going to find him.'

'Take me ten seconds to crush his neck.'

'But why?' He glared at her. 'You are sweet on him, bitch, aren't you?'

Blushing she said, 'I am absolutely not sweet on him.'

'You were never worried about me getting rid of any of the others. What's so special about Mikey boy?'

'Nothing's special about him.' He let the carpet fall back in place, stood up, and rolled the sofa back to where it had been. Then he repositioned the coffee table. 'You've got a point, Alex, about him not getting out. Why show any mercy on the little bastard by putting him out of his misery? We'll just let him starve to death all on his own in the darkness. Happy with that?'

She nodded. 'Have you checked today's papers?'

'No, I've been cleaning the place out. Got all yesterday's - nothing to worry about. We'll check today's at the airport.' He grinned. 'Then after that, no worries, right?' Five minutes later the Mercedes was packed with Ashley's four suitcases and Vic's large holdall. He locked the front door and pocketed the keys. 'Do you think we should drop them back in to the agency?'

'We have five more months to run on the lease, woman! You want people going in there and sniffing around? Because I tell you one thing, it ain't going to smell too good in there in a week or two.'

She said nothing as she clipped on her seatbelt, watching the house out of the window for the last time. It was a strange house, perfect for their purposes because of its isolation - the nearest neighbour was a quarter of a mile away - and in fact doubly perfect in the light of events last Tuesday night. You could never in a million years call it a pretty or stylish house. Built on scrubby wasteland - which hadn't changed - in the 1930s, it looked like one truncated half of a pair of semi-detached houses, as if the other side of it had never been built. Originally there had been an integral garage, but some years back that had been converted into what was now the sitting room. He started the car. In an hour they would be at Gatwick Airport. Tomorrow, or later today - she always had a problem with the time zones - they would be back in Australia. Home. Specks of drizzle pattered onto the windscreen. Regardless, she slipped on her new Gucci sunglasses. Vic had cropped her hair - no time to go to a salon - then she had put on this morning a short, dark wig. If there was any search at all at the airport, they would be watching for Ashley Harper. There was just the smallest possibility they might be looking for Alexandra Huron. But as she looked at the passport in her handbag, which still had two years to run, she smiled. Certainly no one would be looking for Anne Hampson.

Vic put the gear lever into drive, then fumbled around. 'Where's the fucking brake?'

'It's a handle; you pull it.'

'Why the fuck do they have a handle? Why didn't you rent a normal car?'

'How much more normal than a Mercedes can you get?' 'One with a proper parking brake!' 'For Christ's sake!' He slid down his window and shouted out, 'Bye, fuckwit. Have a nice rest of your life!'

'Vic?'

'Yeah?'

He accelerated away fiercely down the potholed road, which the council seemed to have forgotten. 'What's the matter, missing your lover boy's dick already?'

'You know something? It's bigger than yours!' He lunged out at her, slapping her face, the car swerving onto the overgrown grass verge, then back onto the road, lurching through a pothole.