Deathly Affair Read online

  ‘Are you saying you don’t love your husband?’

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.’

  ‘You must still love him, even if only a little?’

  ‘No, not at all. I love you, you know I do, but I never loved him, not really.’

  ‘But you must have loved him once,’ he persisted, ‘or why on earth would you have married him in the first place?’

  She shook her head. ‘I was just swept away by circumstances. Marrying David was the biggest mistake of my life.’

  Mark felt a tremor of anxiety in case she went on to say she wanted to leave her husband. As long as she stayed married to someone else, he felt safe.

  ‘I only married David because of the baby. I told you, I was pregnant when we got married. I wasn’t given any choice.’

  He frowned. ‘There’s always a choice.’

  ‘I was only seventeen.’ She hesitated. ‘I can’t help how I feel. They’re my feelings. They just happen. We can’t control our feelings.’

  ‘So are you saying you wouldn’t have married him if you hadn’t been pregnant?’

  ‘Not in a million years.’

  She was so emphatic he could not help feeling sorry for her, trapped in a loveless marriage, but it was not his problem if she had been rash enough to tie herself to a man she did not love. Although he was fond of her, in a way, he was not going to let his feelings for one woman dominate his life. They had only ever agreed to spend time together for fun. The idea that they might one day commit to one another in any serious way had never entered his mind. Her married status not only suited him, it was necessary for the survival of their relationship.

  ‘Now you’ve got your daughter, I don’t suppose you’ll ever be able to leave her father,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘Aimee will be leaving home in a couple of years,’ she replied.

  Mark nodded, but he could not trust himself to speak. Certainly he was not thinking what Ann clearly hoped he had in mind, that with her daughter gone, the way would be clear for her to move in with Mark. He sighed. In many ways he would be sorry to see their affair come to an end, but the writing was on the wall.

  ‘Things are going to change once she’s left,’ Ann added with a coy smile.

  Mark nodded. ‘I guess they are,’ he agreed, turning away.

  He could just imagine the scene she was going to make when he told her their affair was over. He would have to make sure she understood his position before she ended her marriage, or it might be difficult to chuck her. Certainly it would be cavalier of him to abandon her right after she had given up her marriage to be with him. Still, he hoped it was just talk, and she would not act on her threat to leave her husband. There was a good chance that she would decide to stick it out for the sake of her daughter. In the meantime, he would continue to see her, but he would watch out for any signs that she was about to make the break from David. As soon as she told him she was ready to end her marriage, he would drop his bombshell. It would be briefly painful, but after that he would never need to see her again. He almost felt sorry in anticipation of the break-up, but he banished such depressing thoughts from his mind. He had always believed in living for the moment. After all, death could strike anyone at any time, and in the most unexpected ways. There was no point in spoiling the time they had left together. He turned to her with a smile and pulled her, unresisting, into his embrace. He might as well enjoy the affair while he could.

  7

  Mark had planned to leave as soon as the concert finished. He could have found a plausible pretext for declining to attend in the first place but, although he was not pleased about having to spend a Saturday evening at school, he knew the visiting violinist would be worth hearing. It had been something of a coup for the head of music to engage her to perform at the school and, besides, it would have been churlish of him not to support an event organised within his department. Few of the pupils appreciated the brilliance of the performance but his applause at least was heartfelt. Afterwards, elated by the music he had just heard, he hung around for a glass of wine, instead of setting off home immediately the performance finished. Chatting with a few parents and sixth formers on this occasion was far more relaxed than the parents’ evenings he was obliged to attend where he always felt it was he, rather than his pupils, who was being judged.

  The violinist’s performance proved a perfect prompt for inconsequential small talk.

  ‘Wasn’t she wonderful,’ they told one another.

  They commented variously on the programme which comprised a well-thought-out combination of traditional favourites and more obscure pieces, some of which Mark had never heard before. After a couple of glasses of wine, he would have been happy to stay longer, but all too soon the head of music wound the evening up with a short speech of thanks to the performer, and after a final round of applause, the audience trickled out of the building.

  As Mark reached the centre of the city, he had to weave his way along streets packed with Saturday-night revellers, most of them drunk. A raucous gang of women dressed in pink and silver costumes went by, shrieking and waving bottles of Babycham. They were followed by another gang of women accompanying a woman dressed in white with a veil fluttering on her head. After listening to uplifting music, the women’s shrill screeching laughter grated horribly.

  Several other people were hanging around at his stop, waiting for buses. His eyes slid past a tall figure in a grey hoodie and lingered on a young woman with striking red hair. Beside her a boy was smoking the end of a cigarette, a trail of smoke spiralling upwards in a breeze blowing through the shelter. As the bus drew up, the boy dropped his cigarette butt. It continued to send a thin thread of smoke into the night air as Mark followed the woman on to the bus. Focused on his rear view of the woman as he climbed aboard after her, he paid scant attention to other passengers. Sitting across the aisle from her, he stared at her, willing her to glance in his direction so he could catch her eye and smile, but she never looked up. When she stood up and left the bus he was almost tempted to follow her, but he stayed in his seat. Even after a few drinks, he knew it would be weird to follow a complete stranger. Besides, his love life was well catered for and he had no need to meet anyone else. With a sigh, he watched the woman walking along the pavement as the bus drove off and she disappeared from view.

  As the red-haired woman moved out of his line of vision, reflected in the window he saw the face of a man who appeared to be staring straight at him. In the instant their eyes met, Mark caught a brief glimpse of sharp features, high cheek bones, a pointed nose, and eyes that looked back at him in the reflection from the window. It was only a fleeting impression of a face half hidden below a hood pulled down over his forehead. As soon as Mark’s eyes fell on his reflection the other man looked away, as though he was reluctant to be observed watching.

  Reaching his stop, Mark jumped down and set off towards the side street where he lived. He was only vaguely aware of another passenger leaving the bus behind him. As he turned the corner into the side street where he lived, at the periphery of his vision he saw a hooded figure walking along the main road a few feet away. For no reason, Mark began to walk faster. The side street was well lit, but deserted apart from him and the man in the hood. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the other man had also turned into his street and seemed to be gaining on him. Mark increased his pace until he was almost trotting. It could have been a coincidence, but he was almost sure the man hurrying along the street behind him was the one who had been watching him on the bus. It was uncomfortable to think that he was being followed. He began to run and heard footsteps tapping rapidly along the pavement behind him.

  Panting, he came to an abrupt halt. If the other man really was pursuing him, he wanted to know why, a question fuelled by anger rather than curiosity. He spun round so the other man could not catch hold of him from behind. The pavement was empty. His pursuer had
vanished, perhaps slipping along the side of one of the properties in the street as soon as Mark stopped running. There was no point in searching for him. Mark turned and hurried home, baffled and uneasy. Once he was back in the safety of his flat, he realised he must have been mistaken, unnerved by the darkness and unsettled by having drunk too quickly on an empty stomach. Clearly the other man had not been following him. Shrugging off his unease, he put the kettle on, and then thought better of it and opened a beer. It was Saturday night, and he wanted to enjoy the rest of his evening alone.

  The following morning, walking home from the local supermarket, he spotted a hooded figure on the opposite pavement apparently waiting for someone. With a slight shock, as he drew near Mark recognised the sharp features of the man he had seen on the bus. He hurried up the path to his front door but before opening it he looked round. The man was standing motionless on the opposite side of the street, watching him from the shadow of his overhanging hood. Dumping his shopping bags in the kitchen, Mark ran back outside to confront the hooded man, but he had vanished. Going back indoors, he cast a glance at the sink where his washing-up was accumulating for Tuesday’s visit from Ann. This time it was not easy to convince himself that he was mistaken because he knew what he had seen, and he was scared.

  His hand shook slightly as he poured himself a drink. He was aware that alcohol probably wouldn’t steady his nerves, but he gulped down a shot of whisky, followed by another one straight away. The drink did not help. Now he felt just as scared as before, and slightly groggy as well. He poured a third whisky and took it through into the living room. Sprawling on an armchair, he examined his options. He could hardly go to the police to complain he had been followed home by a hooded man. The whole idea sounded silly and paranoid and, in any case, he had no idea who his stalker might be. Even if the police took his claim seriously, they were hardly going to offer him protection from some nebulous stranger who might or might not exist. The likelihood was that he was being targeted by an ex-pupil playing a stupid prank, but it was also possible that his stalker was the aggrieved husband or boyfriend of a woman Mark had enjoyed a fling with. If that was true, the stalker could turn violent. Mark resolved to be vigilant and confront his stalker as soon as he had an opportunity to do so. Possibly the whole episode was a mistake that would be easily resolved if they could only talk to one another. But he determined to carry a knife from now on, in case things turned ugly.

  8

  This wasn’t the first time Eileen had let her frustration show in the course of an investigation. Although it was less than a week since the rough sleeper had been found in a shop doorway, no one was satisfied with how the investigation was going, least of all the detective chief inspector. The victim’s identity remained a mystery, and very little was known about his death, other than that he had been strangled with some sort of noose made of fabric. For the past week a higher profile murder case had taken priority over the investigation into the homeless victim, and the man hours available for this case had been curtailed. Now that the other case had been wrapped up, Eileen was focusing her attention on the dead tramp.

  ‘We need to work harder and faster on this,’ she said, as though the members of the team were each personally responsible for the lack of progress they had made. ‘This case has been hanging over us for days and we’re no further ahead with it than we were when the body was first spotted. We have to step up our efforts, starting right now.’

  Listening to the detective chief inspector’s rhetoric, Geraldine wondered how she would have behaved if she had found herself in Eileen’s position. Until recently, she had been a detective inspector herself, heading for promotion to an even higher post. Now, having followed an impulse to protect her twin sister, she had been demoted to detective sergeant. She did not regret the actions that had led to her disgrace; by sacrificing her own career prospects, Geraldine had been able to save her sister’s life. As a direct result of Geraldine’s selfless action, her sister had finally agreed to attend a rehabilitation clinic in an attempt to kick her addiction to heroin. As long as Helena remained clean, Geraldine’s sacrifice had been worthwhile.

  ‘I screwed up your career for you, didn’t I?’ Helena had asked her one day.

  Hoping Helena would not realise the extent of the sacrifice she had made, Geraldine’s response had been cagey. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If it wasn’t for me you would’ve been an important cop by now, wouldn’t you? You’d have been really high up,’ Helena had gone on, staring intently at her. ‘You’d probably have been chief of the whole country, instead of being shunted off to York in disgrace.’

  Geraldine had managed to force a credible laugh. ‘Listen, Helena, I’ve not been “shunted off” anywhere. I like York –’

  ‘Sure. And you really like being a sergeant instead of an inspector, don’t you? That’s just what an ambitious woman like you wants, isn’t it? To move down the ranks instead of up. Don’t give me that bullshit. How do you think it makes me feel, knowing you made this oh-so-noble sacrifice to save me from my evil ways. At least you could be honest with me about it.’

  Geraldine had hesitated only briefly to work out a plausible excuse to help assuage her sister’s guilt and anger.

  ‘Actually,’ she had replied, ‘I wanted to go to York because there’s a guy there I’ve worked with before, and I wanted to see more of him. So you don’t need to feel in any way responsible for what happened to me. Your impact on my career wasn’t that important.’

  Helena’s eyes had narrowed. ‘Do you mean you fancy him?’

  ‘I... yes, I like him,’ Geraldine had admitted.

  ‘You could have followed him there anyway, without all the drama.’

  ‘It’s not always that easy to get a transfer.’

  Helena had shrugged. ‘Whatever you say.’

  Geraldine was not sure whether Helena had believed her or not. She was not even sure herself about her feelings for Ian Peterson. At one time she had believed their relationship might become closer than platonic friendship, but he seemed to have lost interest in her. She could not have said why, but she understood that following him to York had been a mistake. She cast a fleeting glance over at him before switching her attention back to the detective chief inspector. Ian was gazing at Eileen with a blank expression on his face. Geraldine thought he looked tired and somehow disconnected from his colleagues. She wondered what he was thinking about.

  ‘It’s time to ramp up our efforts,’ Eileen was saying. ‘We need to question everyone who lives and works on Coney Street. Someone there might have noticed something, and if that doesn’t come up with anything we’re going to have to spread the net wider.’

  ‘What about the other rough sleepers?’ Ian asked, clearly more engaged than he appeared. ‘Shouldn’t we be talking to them?’

  ‘If you can get them to co-operate,’ someone else muttered.

  ‘Of course they’ll co-operate,’ Geraldine said. ‘One of their community has just been brutally murdered. They must all be wondering if they’ll be the next victim.’

  A few other officers murmured in agreement.

  ‘We’ll talk to everyone we can find,’ Eileen said.

  Ariadne frowned. ‘That’s going to be a massive operation.’

  ‘We’re drafting in more officers to help,’ Eileen replied. ‘It’s time to sort this one out before any more vulnerable people are targeted. At the moment we’re dealing with one random death, but who knows what’s behind it? We can’t afford to let the situation get out of control.’

  ‘Do you think this could be the start of a concerted attack on homeless people?’ Ariadne asked Geraldine when the briefing was over.

  Geraldine looked up from her desk. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘It’s what Eileen was implying. She said this might not be the only attack on people sleeping rough. What do you think?’

  Ger
aldine hesitated. ‘That’s certainly the kind of line the press would love to pick up on,’ she said at last.

  ‘I know, I know, we keep this to ourselves, of course. Although I dare say reporters have already made the leap from one murder to a blood bath. They hardly need us to feed their sensational bollocks.’

  ‘Who’s got sensational bollocks?’ a young constable asked, overhearing Ariadne’s closing comment. ‘Really, what you women talk about when you’re supposed to be working never ceases to amaze me!’

  Ariadne laughed at his affectation of surprise, but Geraldine did not feel like joining in with the lighthearted exchange. The implications of the murder were worrying. Eileen had been right to demand more resources for this particular investigation. If it turned out to be one attack on a rough sleeper, that would be serious enough, but the murder appeared to have been carefully planned by a killer who had covered his tracks. That raised a number of possibilities, one of which was that the victim had been deliberately selected precisely because he was homeless. And homelessness was on the increase in York, despite the work of the council resettlement centres. For a killer targeting rough sleepers, victims could be relatively easy pickings.

  ‘What if someone really is targeting rough sleepers?’ she muttered. ‘And if that’s what’s happening, is the killer going to be satisfied with one victim?’

  Ariadne looked round. ‘What did you say?’

  Geraldine sighed. ‘We have to get this case sorted as soon as we can.’

  With a nod, Ariadne returned to her banter with the constable who had interrupted them.

  9

  Ann refused to give Mark the number of her landline, and told him she was careful to leave no trace of their assignations at her home. In addition to those precautions, she had bought a pay-as-you-go phone which she kept hidden from her husband, topping it up with cash. Mark was happy for her to keep their affair a secret from her husband. When he assured her that breaking up her marriage was the last thing he wanted to do, she thanked him for his sympathetic grasp of her situation. The truth was that he was as keen as she was that her husband should not find out about their affair.