The Wives, page 17
He slid open the door but she shook her head, suddenly weary. ‘Thank you. I’ll find my way around.’
‘If madam would write a list of what she’d like me to bring, I’ll fetch them as soon as I’m given permission.’
Realising he expected her to make the list right away, she sighed and crossed to an elegant desk that sat against one wall. In the drawer, as expected, she found writing paper and a pen. Sitting, she tried to think what she’d need, but all that came into her head was knickers. She imagined the rather prim Emilio lifting out handfuls of the lacy lingerie she’d bought for Daniel’s delectation. Her snort of laughter had him tilt his head in a question she wasn’t planning to answer. Instead, she scribbled a list of things she might need over the following days and handed it to him.
He took the sheet, folded it neatly in half and nodded. ‘If there is anything madam needs, my number remains the same.’
And then he was gone and she was alone in a suite built for more than one.
She thought about having a shower to wash the lingering stink from her body. Instead, she crossed to the fridge to check out what alcohol was available. Only the best possibly, but it was the alcohol percentage she was interested in. Neat gin would fit the bill. It might be good to stay drunk till the cruise was over. Or until her stay on it was. If the post-mortem showed up something dodgy, the local police might take a hard line. Take her into custody here in Zanzibar.
If the post-mortem showed up something dodgy.
If…
40
TRACY ANN
‘You feeling okay?’
It was the third time Blake had asked Tracy Ann the same question in as many minutes. Once more, one more damn time, and she’d tell him the truth. That she was feeling fucking marvellous. That thanks to Daniel’s totally unexpected death, she could breathe for the first time in weeks, that the knots that had tightened since she’d shared a hot tub with him the day before had gone, that the vice that seemed to have been tightening around her head, causing it to ache and her thoughts to become scrambled, had loosened. It hadn’t gone, but the pain was easier, her thoughts clearer.
Clear enough to allow her to take a deep breath before answering. ‘I’m fine, darling, it’s just the shock of it all, you know. Daniel was always so alive, wasn’t he?’
‘Alive?’ Blake tilted his head side to side. ‘I’d say larger than life myself.’
Tracy Ann was bent over unlacing her shoes but she looked up when she heard the undertone to Blake’s words. Was she imagining it or was there a sharp edge to them? It was so unusual for her normally laid-back husband to be anything other than genial that she was instantly on the alert.
‘Yes,’ she said, kicking off the shoes and flexing her toes. Wasn’t that exactly why she’d been attracted to him in the first place? Everything about Daniel was larger than life – his smile, the glint in his eyes, his obvious charm, charisma, and raw sexuality. And the streak of nastiness that lay just below the surface. Scratch him and it came oozing out to destroy everything in its path.
‘There was something about him though.’ Blake picked up the remote and flicked on the TV. ‘It’ll be interesting to see how the captain is planning to explain the decision not to dock in Wete as planned.’
Tracy Ann crossed to the sofa and sat while he searched for the information channel.
‘Ha, clever!’ He turned to look at her. ‘Unconfirmed cholera outbreak. The Nobility Fleet Line unwilling to risk passenger safety, yada yada yada.’
‘Maybe that’s what killed him. Cholera has been a problem on mainland Africa for a while; maybe it’s reached Zanzibar and Daniel came in contact with it while we were on shore.’
Blake switched off the TV and took the seat beside her. ‘They’d have done a test for it and obviously it’s been ruled out. We’ve been told we can visit later so whatever killed him, it was nothing contagious.’
She felt his leg press against hers, the heat of it. Daniel was dead but the memory of that night was still with her, still grinding into her soul. She played with the edge of her shorts, pulling her leg away. ‘Healthy men don’t just die for no reason.’
‘Our next stop is Zanzibar City. I’m guessing he’ll be taken off. They’ll want a post-mortem done ASAP to prove he didn’t die from anything contagious before they’ll allow passengers off, I’m guessing. They won’t want to take risks.’
‘We could be stuck on the ship for days!’ The thought appalled her. The ship was suddenly far too small, too crowded. Plus, there’d be no way to avoid her friends and they’d see what Blake couldn’t – the sheer relief at the death of their friend’s husband. Another thought came to her and she turned to look at her husband. ‘What did you mean, “there was something about him”?’
Blake sat back, linking his hands behind his head. ‘From the beginning, I felt he was putting on a show for us. The hail-fellow-well-met approach was very calculated, as if he was weighing us up before deciding how to approach each of us. And although his cheerful comments were usually funny, they were often viciously barbed.’
Tracy Ann felt the knots in her belly re-tying themselves. ‘I thought you liked him.’
Blake raised his head. He dropped a hand to lay it on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. ‘Like him? No, I never did. But you know that old adage: keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’ He waited until she nodded before continuing. ‘Once he and Natasha married and we were set to be spending more time with him, it seemed safer to keep him closer. Maybe it would have been better all round if I’d let him know the truth.’
‘The truth?’
‘That I thought he was a devious, lying shit.’
What? A devious, lying shit! Tracy Ann felt Blake’s fingers dig deeper into her shoulder, hurting her.
She was so used to thinking of him as a genial, easy-going man who adored her that she was confused, shocked by what was happening. Perhaps she’d taken him for granted. Daniel had worn an ill-fitting mask. Maybe Blake’s was better and behind his genial exterior lurked something else.
He had, after all, survived for all these years in the world of politics. He was used to getting things done under difficult circumstances, used to dealing with sleaze. Perhaps, he’d also learned how to get rid of his opponents.
She reached up and laid her hand on his, quietening it, easing the pain he was causing. But it was the pain she’d caused him that was searing through her as she realised that he knew something… He knew.
The sleazy world of politics. Blake had once told her that he could acquire whatever he needed to do what had to be done. He had, she assumed, been referencing the day-to-day work he was involved in, but perhaps he’d also meant that he’d learnt how to deal with dodgy politicians.
He couldn’t possibly know the truth about what had happened between her and Daniel, but perhaps he believed that they’d been having an affair. The thought made her want to turn and tell him the truth. Confess what she’d done and what she’d been about to do. But she didn’t, because she was suddenly very afraid that one confession would lead to another and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what Blake had done.
Daniel was dead. And whatever had killed him wasn’t contagious. So what was it? Poison?
Her hand tightened on Blake’s. What she was thinking was crazy, wasn’t it? Did she really think that her gentle husband would kill Daniel because he believed they were having an affair?
She took her hand away and immediately felt his fingers knead her shoulder again. Painfully. This time, she didn’t stop him, the pain becoming at one with the ache in her heart, the tense cramps in her belly, and the crippling throb in her head.
She was to blame. She and her stupid desire for a little excitement. And if Blake was to blame for Daniel’s death, that too was down to her.
Even dead, the bastard wasn’t going to leave her in peace.
41
MICHELE
The relief that flooded Michele and Don was barely contained until they returned to their cabin. There they let it off the leash. Laughter. Hugging one another. Michele dancing a little jig around the room. Don punching the air. She grabbed his arm and they danced together until they stopped and stared at one another with huge smiles and bright eyes. And then they kissed and fell onto the towel swan that sat on the end of their bed, squashing it flat as they rolled together, tearing their clothes off until they were naked and wrapped around one another.
And when they were done, hot, sweaty and satisfied, they lay silently with their limbs entwined.
‘Better than make-up sex,’ Michele said, her softly spoken words tickling the hair on Don’s chest. When he made no comment, she curled fingers around a hair and tugged gently. ‘Have I worn you out?’
‘No, I’m thinking.’
‘Always a dangerous thing to do.’ Rolling away from him, she raised herself on an elbow and looked down on his face. He looked unusually serious. ‘We’re allowed to be relieved that Daniel is dead,’ she said, lifting her hand to lay it against his cheek. ‘He was an evil bastard who used people for his own ends. The world is a far better place without him.’
He reached to take her hand and hold it on his chest. She could feel his heart beating. Slowing down after their exertions, but always steady. As he had been for most of their married life. He’d made one mistake – not in getting into debt, not even in getting involved with Daniel. No, his mistake had been in not telling her. In trying to protect her as if she was a Victorian lady in need of being sheltered, and not the life-hardened, resilient woman she was. ‘A much better place,’ she said. ‘He’d always want you to do one more thing for him. And if things went tits-up, you can depend on it, he’d have blamed it all on you. You’re the qualified accountant, he’d have said, and he’d been misled by you. And he’d say it with that smarmy, fake-sincere expression on his face that made me want to puke.’ She was pleased to see this raised a smile. ‘Time to get up,’ she said, pulling her hand from his, surprised when his fingers tightened on hers to prevent her moving.
‘You hoping for another round?’ she said with a laugh.
‘I love you. I’d love you whatever you did. Stand by you, no matter what.’
She pulled her hand away and shuffled upright. ‘No matter what?’ She got to her feet, dragging the sheet with her, wrapping it toga-like around her chest as she took a step away. ‘What are you talking about?’ She raised her chin, her dignified stance spoiled as she tripped on the ends of the sheet trailing along the ground. ‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ she said, gathering her robes up and crossing to the sofa.
He grabbed his discarded clothes and pulled them on before getting to his feet, his expression unusually sombre. Before he joined her, he opened the fridge and took out a bottle of beer.
Michele watched him, puzzled. There was a time when she could read him like a book. Or so she thought. She let her breath out in a weary sigh. Perhaps she’d been fooling herself and saw what she wanted to. Had that been it? She’d wanted to believe Don was a successful businessman because it would reflect well on her. Behind every successful man, there was a successful woman. Wasn’t that it? Was that why she’d been blind to Don’s increasing irritability, his pinched expression, the way his eyes darted away if Daniel’s name was even mentioned? She hadn’t wanted to see.
She refused to be so blind again. ‘What is it? You’d better tell me. No more secrets, right?’
He opened the beer, tossed the cap in the bin, and drank deeply from the bottle. Desperate gulps that told her more than words would have done that she wasn’t going to like what he said.
The bottle was almost empty when he sat beside her, holding it in his hand, dangling it between his knees. ‘I love you. Always did, always will. I’d do anything for you.’ He took another swig from the bottle, then put it down and turned to look at her. ‘Anything, Michele.’
She laughed, a nervous, high-pitched sound, because she had no idea where this conversation was going, but she was more than ever sure she wasn’t going to like it. ‘That’s good to know,’ she said finally.
‘You need to tell me how you did it so we can prepare for whatever happens.’
Michele and her girlfriends had often laughed at their partners inability to communicate clearly, or at all. It wasn’t funny now. Not in the slightest. ‘How I did it? What are you talk—’ She stopped abruptly, her eyes widening as realisation dawned. She struggled to stand, swearing softly under her breath when her feet once more became tangled in the sheet. ‘Are you fucking serious? You think I killed Daniel?’
‘I saw you.’ He stood and reached a hand towards her. ‘I understand why you did it.’ He shook his head. ‘If I hadn’t been such an idiot, you wouldn’t have needed to go to such extremes.’
‘Extremes!’ This time, Michele’s laugh was genuinely amused. ‘You think killing Daniel is going to extremes; I’d classify it as going bloody psycho myself!’
‘I saw you,’ he said again. ‘When I lost sight of you in that market in Kigomasha. I thought it was accidental but I’m guessing it was deliberate. You weren’t careful enough though; I saw you with that trader, saw you slipping something into your pocket. I’m guessing you bought poison of some sort.’
Her smile was forced. ‘It seems I’ve been caught out.’
42
BARBARA
Ralph was stretched out on the bed. Asleep, or pretending to be. Barbara was on the balcony, standing at the rail, trying to get her thoughts in order. She had to. Ralph would want to go to lunch in a while; she had to have her game face in place before they sat opposite each other in the bright lights of the restaurant. She’d have preferred to have waited till dinner when the more subtle lighting would have given her some chance of hiding the ravages Daniel’s demise had wreaked on her face. Demise. Even in her head, she found it hard to say dead. She said it now, softly, trying it out for size. ‘Dead.’ It felt wrong, clumsy, sharp.
Daniel had been so alive. Even now, she could smell the cologne he wore and could feel the heat of his hand through the fabric of her dress. She shut her eyes and sank into the memories, feeling the frisson that every thought or sight of Daniel had sent sizzling through her.
She loved Ralph, had done from almost the first despite their age difference. It hadn’t seemed huge back then. Like Daniel, Ralph had been a larger-than-life, charismatic man who had swept her off her feet. She still loved him; she just wasn’t sure she liked him much any more.
She wasn’t sure what that said about her – that she liked the dynamic journalist but wasn’t sure about the retired man slouching around the house, getting under her feet, making her feel old, worn out.
His retirement should have given them an opportunity to travel, to do more things together. It was supposed to be a new beginning, not an end, not a slow spiral towards old age and incapacity. Her fingers curled around the rail as she stared out to sea. Daniel was dead.
She wasn’t sure when she’d seriously considered the idea of having an affair… with anyone. Just to feel alive again. Perhaps around the same time that Ralph’s downward spiral seemed unstoppable. Or was it when she realised that she, like her mother before her, looked to be hitting the menopause early, so that at forty, it was all over.
She was good at putting on a front; of being good old reliable Barbara. She’d put on a good front the night they’d gone out for dinner with her friends some months before. Maybe she’d needed an extra glass of wine to keep the smile in place and her voice chirpy. As they often did, they’d arranged to meet their husbands for a drink afterwards. Tired from pretending all was right with her world, she’d have preferred to have gone home; she’d certainly have preferred not to have Ralph joining them. Ralph with the miserable long face he’d been carrying around with him like a dependent child for weeks.
But there was no way out of it so she’d smiled, nodded when necessary, hoped she could get through the night without screaming.
The new wine bar they had decided on was an amazing venue. All moody lighting, lots of glass, mirrors, comfortable seating. It was also crowded. With no seats available, they’d stood with their drinks, separated now and then from each other as the crowd ebbed and flowed, patrons making their way to the bar and back, some leaving, others pushing in. An amazing venue but not one conducive to conversation, which suited Barbara perfectly. It suited her too that Ralph had latched onto Don and was at his side deep in conversation about something or other.
‘We’ll just stay for one.’ Natasha had mouthed the words and grinned when Barbara gave her a thumbs up.
Daniel and Blake had gone to the bar for the drinks, and it was Daniel who brought Barbara’s across. ‘I got you a large one,’ he said, holding the glass of wine out to her. ‘You look like you need it.’
A disturbance behind him forced him forward suddenly, the fingers of the hand around the glass pressing against her breast. She felt the warmth of them through the silk of her shirt. It started a roll of heat that swept up her neck and across her cheeks. She could feel a lick of moisture between her breasts, in her armpits. Her eyes flicked to the exit. She needed to get out of there.
Maybe Daniel could read her mind. ‘Take a drink, you’ll be fine.’ He lifted the glass to her lips and held it there while she took a mouthful, gulping the chilled liquid down gratefully.
‘Thank you.’ He was close enough that she could smell his cologne, something woody and masculine. Close enough that she could see a tiny scar on his cheek and she itched to reach up and touch it, to ask him how he’d acquired it. They were close enough that she was staring straight into his eyes and he was looking into hers. She felt he was seeing right down into her soul and she felt the first stirring of desire for another man.
