EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY
Vanessa kissed Paul
on the lips, hugged him and drew back.
He smelt of expensive after shave and his cheeks were shiny. He claimed he was in his mid thirties, although
she suspected he lied about his age, his hair was dark, cut short and greying
at the sides. He had a slightly
upturned, almost feminine nose, which stopped him short of being conventionally
handsome.
‘I wish you didn’t have to be away this weekend,’ she said.
‘Business is business,’ he smiled and shrugged. ‘I have to do a deal with some hotels in
Rome.
Rome’s big business these days, especially for the long
weekend break.’
Vanessa glanced at her watch. ‘You’re
cutting it fine.’
‘I know. I’d better hurry.’
‘Drive carefully.’
‘I always do.’
She gave a slightly sarcastic chuckle.
‘Since when?’
‘Since I bought the new BMW.’
When he spoke, there was that niggling feeling again that something was
wrong. It wasn’t anything she could put
her finger on, just a nagging doubt at the back of her mind. For a travel agent with one shop, he seemed
to have too much money to throw about.
He was excessively generous, but it never seemed genuine, as if he was
using money extravagantly to show off.
But who was she to complain?
He kissed her hurriedly on the cheek, turned and left the flat. She stood rooted to the spot, listening to
the lingering slam of the door in her head.
She felt suddenly very lonely.
She walked over to the window and looked out at the beautiful view from his
fourth floor flat on Mount Ephraim; the town below Tunbridge Wells common, the
distinctive dome of the Opera House gleaming in the bright sunlight.
It was a luxurious flat, and she felt very lucky to live here. But there was still that doubt at the back of
her mind that something was seriously wrong.
It was a three bedroom flat, and one of the bedrooms was tiny; the one
which Paul used as his office. It was
kept in a glorious state of untidiness, deliberately he said, because that was
the way he liked to work, and she was forbidden to go in and tidy. It was his domain.
But now that he was safely on his way to Gatwick to catch a flight to
Rome, what was the harm in having a proper look
round? Providing she put everything back
as it was.
First, she made herself a cup of coffee in Paul’s state of the art espresso
machine. She wanted to kill a bit of
time, just in case he got round the corner and found he’d left something behind
and hurriedly returned. It often
happened that way, either because he didn’t trust her, or he was never very
organised. It was the latter, she
decided, and fell to wondering yet again, how someone so successful was always
late for meetings with clients, often didn’t turn up for appointments, and was
generally a bad time keeper.
Two cups of coffee and half an hour later, she went into Paul’s “den”, as he
called it. His work station was
scattered with papers, but they were mainly scraps with information about
various websites. There was a filing
cabinet next to the work station, where she knew he filed his bills, the most
recent in the top drawer.
She pulled the drawer open and pulled out a folder containing his credit card
bills. She took it into the living room,
sat on the sofa, and carefully searched through the folder. She frowned as she studied his American
Express bill. There were three payments
for an extortionate amount of money at some London clubs. It
amounted to over two thousand pounds at Spearmint Rhino, Stringfellow’s and
China White, over a period of less than a week.
What was unsettling about it was the date. It was the second week in February, and she
was certain that was the week he said he was in the Canary Islands, setting up a deal.
She fetched her diary and checked. And
she was right. Her entry for the start
of that week said: “Paul in Canary Isles all this week”.
So he had lied to her, and was in London clubbing it.
*
As Amy went to fetch her copies of the Daily
Mail and the Kent & Sussex
Courier, her heart jumped as she saw the placard outside the newsagent’s
shop:
‘CHARITY SHOP WORKER INJURED IN FIGHT’
She felt queasy and her hands shook as she fumbled through her purse for coins
to pay for the newspapers. She could see
the story about the charity worker emblazoned across the front page and she
suddenly felt tearful.
The young woman who served her accepted the money carefully and put the shaking
hands down to old age. Tears welling in her eyes, Amy turned hurriedly away
from the counter and exited.
Hurrying towards her home, she felt stricken with guilt. She had spent much of
the week going round all the charity shops, warning staff to be on the lookout
for the young man with the swastika tattoos. And now it was possible that
someone had challenged the young thug and had been injured because of it.
As soon as she got home, she spread the paper out on the kitchen table and read
the story. The manager of a charity shop in Paddock Wood had challenged the
young man as he donated some children’s videos, and she had received a broken
jaw for her efforts, and was now recovering in the Kent and Sussex Hospital. Police issued
a description of the young man and were confident that someone would come
forward with information leading to his arrest.
But tears ran down Amy’s cheeks as she imagined the grief she had brought to
the poor manager of the charity shop.
And it was all her fault. All
over a stupid, obscene video. A stupid prank that had now resulted in an act of
violence.
Amy decided she would visit the manager in hospital, and take her a beautiful
bouquet of flowers.
IN EPISODE 141
Vanessa has a disturbing phone call from Paul’s mother.