Almost a Crime (26 page)

take two years.’

‘What’s his name? Your MP? I might know him.’

‘Oh, rather romantic. Gabriel Bingham. Straight out of

Thomas Hardy. I must say, for a Labour man, he’s a bit of a

surprise.’

No doubt he speaks nicely, thought Octavia, and has

good manners.

‘He’s very well spoken and extremely polite,’ said

Patricia David. ‘Quite young and good looking in a wild

sort of way. He’s been to a couple of the meetings. Very

noncommittal of course, but I’m hopeful of his support. Now, the Daily M.ail want to interview me, about the latest development. Is that a good idea?’

‘Yes, but make some really solid noises, Patricia. Don’t

just waffle on about the wood and how lovely it is. Say

you’re starting an appeal fund, that you plan to brief a

barrister, take it to the European Courts if necessary. Sound

as if you really are going to be tough opponents. Not just an

emotional band of mothers.’

‘Hang on, I’m just writing that down. Marvellous. I

know I’ve said it before, but we really are lucky to have

you on our side, Octavia. I wish you could meet our Mr

Bingham — you’d like him such a lot and maybe you could

persuade him to come in on our side.’

‘Now that really would be dangerous,’ said Octavia,

laughing. ‘For me to meet him.’

Marianne looked at Nico Cadogan across the table and

wondered quite what she was doing here. At Le Caprice,

where half the clientele would know either her or him and

wonder what they were doing together.

‘Well, this is fun,’ he said, as if he read her thoughts.

‘Good to do something just for fun, don’t you think?’

‘Yes,’ she said, slightly doubtfully.

‘Come along. Drink your champagne. I want to hear all

about these terrible problems you’re having with your

family.’

When he had phoned that morning, ostensibly in search

of Felix, she had told him she was the last person Felix

would be with at that moment, and he had asked why, and

rather rashly she had told him.

‘You sound as if you are feeling neglected,’ he said.

‘Come and have lunch with me, and let me treat you rather

better for a bit.’

She had said no, of course she couldn’t, and he had said

yes, of course she could, and she had suddenly looked over

her life and thought that yes, he was right, of course she

could. And here she was, sitting opposite him, feeling

absurdly nervous and more than a little confused, both

emotionally and sexually, by the rather fearsome force of his

attentions.

‘I’m finding it rather insulting,’ he said, looking at her

over his glass of champagne, ‘that you’re not enjoying this

more.’

‘Oh, I am,’ she said, taking another sip of the champagne

- not the house champagne either, but Veuve Cliquot.

Clearly, Nico was not over-concerned about his personal

financial stability.

‘No, you’re not. You’re worrying about whether someone

you know will see us; you’re worrying about what

Felix might say if he knew — or does he know?’

‘No,’ she said, half amused, half indignant at the

question, ‘I don’t have to tell Felix everything I do — we’re

not married.’

‘Why not? You’ve been together a long time, you’re

obviously very fond of him, you’re both free …”

‘We choose not to be,’ said Marianne firmly. ‘And,

Nico, I’d rather not talk about it. It really is nothing to do

with you.’

‘Yes, it is,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘I think you should use your imagination on that one.’

‘I’m afraid, Tom, we may have to look for an extra

injection of capital,’ said Aubrey.

‘Christ. Is it that bad?’

‘Not yet. But if we lost an account, even a small one,

we’d be done for.’

‘Well, we’re not going to,’ said Tom lightly. ‘Everything’s

going well.’

‘Including Michael Carlton?’

‘Oh, I can steady him. He’ll get his permission. It’s just

going to take a bit longer. You could argue it’s a good

thing; we’ll get his fee for longer as well.’

‘Okay,’ said Aubrey with a sigh, ‘we’ll hang on. I’m

having dinner with an old City chum on Tuesday night.

You’re not free, are you? You and Octavia? I know he’d

like to meet you. Both of you,’ he added, stressing the point.

‘No, sorry,’ said Tom. ‘I’m out of town. Got a meeting

in Oxford with a group of environmentalists, interested in

forming a parliamentary committee. I won’t be back, I’m

afraid.’ He was thumbing through some papers, just a bit

too intently.

Aubrey looked at him for a moment. ‘I see,’ was all he

said.

‘Where have you been?’

Marianne jumped; she had thought the house was empty.

Zoe was sitting in the kitchen watching TV. ‘You look

nice. A bit flushed, but really nice. Cool dress.’

‘Thank you,’ said Marianne with some difficulty. She felt

flushed all over. Her body, always sexually responsive, was in shock with desire: she wanted only to get upstairs, and into the shower, to try and drown the acute reaction she

was experiencing after two hours of Nico Cadogan and his

intense sexual attentions. It wasn’t that he had even touched

her - well, apart from a kiss goodbye, utterly casual, at the

door of Le Caprice. And the occasional covering of her

hand with his. And the smile — that dangerous, intent smile.

He had put her into a taxi, apologised for not being able to

escort her in it back to Eaton Square — he had an urgent

meeting. Thank God for that, thought Marianne. Her

mother had talked laughingly about men in her youth who

were labelled NSIT — Not Safe In Taxis. She wouldn’t be at

all safe in a taxi herself, with Nico Cadogan, the state she

was in; she would have been hard pressed not to make the

first move and start kissing him. It was an event that must

not be repeated. Much too dangerous.

She smiled at Zoe carefully, pushed her hand through her

hair, and even that was disturbing. Nico had done the same,

pushed his hand through it, said I do like a woman’s hair

that isn’t all fussed to bits. And where had they been when

he had done that? In the lobby of Le Caprice. Well, most

people had gone by then, it had been ten to four. Only the

manager and the hat-check girl and the barman and the

doorman and about a dozen other people could have

noticed. Oh, God.

‘I must go and have a shower,’ she said to Zoe quickly. ‘I

really am very hot.’

‘Okay. Cool,’ said Zoe. She grinned at her, rather

conspiratorially. Marianne felt like a teenager in the

presence of her mother, rather than the other way round.

‘I’d like to invite Louise over on Sunday,’ said Octavia.

‘And Sandy, obviously.’

They were going to the cottage, had been invited to a

big fortieth birthday party on the Saturday night; but that

still left Sunday to be alone with Tom. The prospect

frightened her.

They were in bed. He had been late the last three nights

and she had been able to pretend to be asleep when he came in; tonight they had been out together, and she was

inescapably in bed with him.

Tom was looking at some papers, annotating them. ‘I’d

really rather not,’ he said. He sounded distracted.

‘Why?’

‘I’ve got a lot of reading to do. Bloody Sandy’ll want to

play tennis, and—’

‘Tom, they’re having an awful time at the moment.

Louise’s mother is dying!’

‘Well, if her mother’s dying, surely she won’t want to

drive an hour in the opposite direction. Suppose something

happened while she was with us?’

‘I think she needs the break,’ said Octavia firmly. ‘In fact,

I’ve already asked her.’

‘Well, you must un-ask her. Or I’ll go back to London

on the train. I really can’t face an afternoon of Sandy talking

about his days in Bosnia. He really gets up my nose.’

‘Tom, he’s not that bad.’

‘I find him very bad.’

‘You wouldn’t find him bad if he was a client, would

you? We’d all have to hang on his every word about

Bosnia, if he had a nice fat fee to wave at you!’

‘Oh, shut up,’ he said wearily. ‘Look, I think I’ll go and

sleep in the guest room. I really do have to work on this

thing. All right by you?’

She shrugged.

He got out of bed and gathered up his things. ‘Good

night, Octavia.’

‘Good night, Tom.’

It was frightening how swiftly the relationship had

deteriorated since she had made her discovery. What scared

her was what would have happened if she hadn’t made it.

Would she still have been living with him perfectly happily,

sitting at the same table as him without feeling sick,

discussing things with him without wanting to scream,

getting into bed with him without shrinking away? Would

he have been making love to her still - it hadn’t happened since that first night — would she have been enjoying it, responding to him? And would he, all the time, through the

meals and the discussions and the lovemaking, have been

thinking of Her, wishing he was with Her, comparing her to Hal How long had it been going on, and why, why had it started in the first place? What had she done or not done,

that he had felt the need to turn from her, seek comfort,

fun, sex or whatever it was he wanted, from someone else?

For the thousandth time she wondered how much longer

she could go on like this, saying nothing, pretending she

didn’t care, getting on with her own life.

Why, why in God’s name didn’t she have it out with

him?

But she knew the answer to that one. She was afraid.

‘How about it, then?’ Ian’s eyes were very confident as he

looked at Zoe; they had just left the Garage in Brixton, and

had been standing outside kissing for a while.

Zoe, as she always was when she had been clubbing, was

in a feverishly overexcited state. She was desperate for sex

now: desperate for him. She hoped he didn’t know it.

‘I’ve got somewhere. Quite near here. Few streets away.

One of the houses I’m working on. It’s empty. I got a key.’

‘But what if we get caught?’

‘Zo, we won’t. The owner’s in the Maldives. It’s really

nice, got good beds and everything. Come on, Zoe,

otherwise I’ll think you don’t want to.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Sounds cool.’

The house was what estate agents used to call bijou; a

Victorian cottage in one of the smarter squares in Brixton.

Zoe found herself walking on thick carpets, then saw in the

dim dawn light a half-done, patently expensive new

kitchen.

‘Nice, innit? I put most of this in. Come on upstairs,

there’s a great bed up there, just been delivered.’

‘Ian, I don’t think we ought to—’

‘Oh, for God’s sake. ‘Course we ought. Come on, Zoe’, life’s too short for worrying.’

“Where’s the loo?’ she said. She was shivering, partly

from cooled sweat, partly from nerves.

‘In there. Go on, then, I’ll turn the bed down.’

Zoe used the loo then went on upstairs. She had lost all

desire for sex: only her fear of being called a wimp or worse

by Ian kept her from running away.

Ian called her from the front bedroom: ‘Come on, Zoe,

what you doing, for Christ’s sake?’

She went in nervously. He was sitting naked in a large,

brass-headed bed, under a very expensive-looking white

duvet cover. He grinned at her. ‘Come on, I’m all ready

and waiting for you. Look, got something to warm you up.

Or cool you down.’ It was a bottle of champagne.

‘Ian! How gorgeous. When did you buy that?’

‘It was in the fridge. Very nice brand of bubbly indeed.

None of your rubbish.’

‘Ian! You can’t take things out of their fridge.’

‘I’ll be putting it back, won’t I? And they don’t exactly

need it out there in the Maldives, do they? It’s a loan, Zoe.

I’ll replace it Monday, when I come to work. Here, out the

way, I’m going to pop it.’

He pulled,the cork; there was a loud bang. Zoe was

terrified, half expecting the neighbours to hear, start

knocking on the wall.

He held out the bottle, let her drink from it, then

dribbled it slowly down on to his cock. Zoe looked at the

cock in awe. It was extremely large.

‘Try sipping from there now,’ he said, and laughed. ‘Go

on, it won’t bite yer. And don’t you go biting it, either.’

Zoe took a deep breath and slithered down the bed.

The cab dropped her on the corner of Eaton Square; it was

almost six and completely light. She often got home at four

from clubs, but that was with friends, who came in with her

and then slept the clock round on her floor. She wondered

what they would think if they knew what she had been doing, having sex in a bed and in a house where she had had no business to be, where she could be arrested for

breaking and entering or whatever it was called. With a

boyfriend who had stolen some champagne and some

cigarettes from the house. And it had, actually, been

exciting. Given the whole thing an edge. And Ian was very

very clever in bed. Definitely the best sex she’d ever had.

Tom had suggested they left the cottage very soon after