Ivoria, Tanith Lee [popular ebook readers .TXT] 📗

She whispered, “I do mean it. The hell he’s put me through all the years we’ve been together. The misery. The filth. Oh God, Stew. I’d like to wipe him off the face of the planet. Oh, you hear these stories about hit men for hire - but it isn’t like, well, finding a private detective. Is it?”

“Not quite.”

“But if only - I would do anything.” She grew deadly quiet then. Her wolf’s eyes bored into his. “I’ve never known anyone like you before,” she said. “You don’t - do you know any way - I could find a contract killer?”

He took her hand and led her upstairs. When Laurence was not there, there were no other people in the house but her. No one came in to clean or cook or get in the way. He and she made love quite violently now, the door standing open. Outside the windows the birds tweeted - in tweeting’s original meaning - taking no notice of any human outcry.

Only after did Stewart tell her that yes, he did know someone who might know someone. If she had really meant it.

Softly Angela said to him, “If you like I’ll write it in my blood on the wall.”

For the first then, Stewart Pond became properly aware that Angela Lewis too was potentially rather mad, and might be dangerous. But he had gone too far. He had become human again, wanted something again. It was a new lease of life for him. They had also, of course, themselves committed adultery frequently, and though not careless, someone always seemed to find such things out. Which might well complicate the progress of any divorce proceedings.

That evening he only said, “Leave it with me.”

She did so.

For Pond it was quite simple. He had known The Man, (Pond only ever called him that now) since army days back in the late 1970’s. On some five previous occasions Pond had requested his service, for a recommended client.

The Man’s work was impeccable. As too on this job. Later Pond had not been sure how he had managed it, but subsequently assumed Laurence, already weakened by some physical flaw, had merely been frightened to death. A unique triumph, and supremely useful. Better than any fake mugging, definitely.

As for Angela’s initial actions, Pond and she had choreographed them. First her frantic calls to Nick, Laurence’s brother. (“He is such a wimp.” Angela’s character sketch. “Laurence says he’s probably a queer. Nicolas, it seems, can’t fuck a woman unless he does it for money. Or so Laurence says.” On Nick then Angela vented her ‘panic’ over Laurence’s ‘disappearance’. Post inquest, Angela threw out of the house the prying if stupid Serena, Laurence’s sister. (“I never could stand the little bitch. A couple of third rate parts in utter crud and she thinks she’s TV’s Angelina Jolie, if several years older.”)

Then though Angela seemed to get rather carried away. She barred Nick and Serena from the funeral, due to their unloving and corrupting influence on Laurence, who otherwise would have been a paragon of marital sublimity. In this, Angela had certainly gone a little too far. She had also strongly implied an incestuous love-hate bond between Laurence and his mother. No doubt fostered mostly by Claudia.

As for Pond’s involvement as a private investigator, who had revealed Laurence’s three latest affairs, that had been reserved as a safeguard. If needed, it could be used to implicate in some manner the third and final lover, Kitty. Hence the choice of Richmond Park, near enough to Kit’s sometime flat, as the place of execution: Driving home from the flat, Laurence must have stopped off - perhaps even to procure drugs - and so met his end.

Nick’s production of Kit’s note, however, provided another gambit. Death had not been triggered by fear, but by the wanton upset Kit, the Ball-Breaker, had caused. (For that reason Pond had pocketed her note.)

This piece of evidence was dependent, clearly, on Laurence’s also having spent (preferably) the weekend - at least some of Friday night - with Kit at the Wimbledon flat.

In fact that would not have been possible. Kit had already left the flat and gone off somewhere - something she was prone to, according to her Wimbledon neighbours. Pond, having gained entry to the block, (his friend the locksmith had provided Pond certain extra props) had had the odd chat with these neighbours, who did indeed think he visited someone in the top flat, a deaf, partially sighted recluse named Mr Purvis. Pond, who did not, and had no intention whatever of troubling Mr Purvis, learned various things about Kit in this way. As well as being often absent, it seemed to be a fact no one was entirely certain when she was there anyway. She was usually “So quiet”. The flats were well sound-proofed evidently. Nor did Kit seem to drive a car and park it, which would have marked her presence.

All this might prove very useful. It meant, if essential, Pond could claim he had seen Kit and Laurence in her flat, on the ‘fatal’ weekend. She in her bathrobe, he in just a towel, as Pond had relayed to Nick. (Laurence’s car, missing from the driveway - which might perhaps have been noted - could always have been parked, for at least some of the time, down the road. Pond had already counted quite a collection of vehicles filling the drive at weekends.)

In fact the towelling scene Pond witnessed had taken place some weeks earlier.

In light of this, Pond was aware the girl might produce an alibi for the time of Laurence’s death. But from what he had so far heard of her, he doubted it would be a reliable one. Her existence seemed skittish and a little off-colour. Not always lawful? He had over the years, Stewart Pond, acquired something of a nose for that sort of thing.

From what he had learned - by then, quite a lot - about Laurence’s routines, Pond had assumed