The Ladykiller (71 page)

Kate searched his face in the darkness, she could make out his features, and her eyes caressed them one by one. He kissed her lightly on the lips and it was like an electric shock going through her body. ‘I’m not sorry for being what I am, Kate, let’s get that straight now. I’m apologising for not thinking about you and what you must be feeling. Does that make sense?’

Kate nodded.

‘Well then, give us a proper kiss.’

He pulled Kate into his arms and kissed her hard on the mouth.

As they broke apart, Kate saw a head look in at the window.

‘Is everything all right, sir?’

Neither of them had noticed the Panda car pull up behind them.

‘Yes, thank you, officer, everything’s fine. We’re just going.’

Kate smiled at the officer and as Patrick pulled out of the layby she put her hand over his on the steering wheel.

‘I don’t want us to fight, Pat.’

‘Let’s just forget abut all this. Now, how about some food? What do you fancy? Italian, French, Spanish, chinky, what?’

Kate laughed. ‘How about an Indian?’

‘Trust you to say the one food I missed out! Tell you what, how about we skip the meal and just go home to bed?’

‘No way.’

Patrick sighed. ‘It was worth a try.’

Kate squeezed his hand gently. ‘I never go to bed on an empty stomach.’

Suddenly she wanted him so badly she could taste it. She felt him put his foot down on the accelerator.

‘Willy told you not to gun the car.’

He glanced at her and smiled.

‘Willy didn’t say anything about emergencies.’

Much later, as she lay beside him, the smell of him in her nostrils and the laziness that rough lovemaking brings enveloping her, she pondered her situation.

The warm loving individual beside her would murder the Grantley Ripper at the drop of a hat. He was capable of murder, she knew that. He had never made any secret of it.

Yet still she wanted him.

He stood for everything she disagreed with. The bed she was lying in was paid for through one or other of his borderline businesses, and he had taken her to an illegal boxing match. Yet one look at his handsome face and she could forgive him anything.

Anything? she asked herself again, and couldn’t answer.

Not honestly anyway.

She snuggled down deeper into his arms. She felt his flaccid penis against her leg, moist and soft, and felt the thrill of him again. He woke momentarily and drew her towards him as if surprised to find her there. She kissed him on the mouth hungrily, trying desperately to empty her mind. He rubbed her breasts roughly and she responded by kissing him harder.

‘Kate?’

‘What?’

‘You can deny this if you want, but I think that big Rasta turned you on.’

‘Oh, you!’

He grabbed hold of her and kissed her again, slipping on top of her as if they were made to fit. She was glad of it.

Neither had mentioned the murders or the fight. It was as if they had an unspoken agreement to drop the subject. But even in the throes of orgasm, it was in the back of both their minds.

Eventually, it would all come up again. Their differences, their divided opinions on right and wrong, these would bring them into conflict.

And it would bring them grief.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Duane Portillo watched number 22620 Apopka Vineland Road. He sat opposite the house eating a sandwich and waiting for his quarry to show himself. He had been furnished with a description that fitted the man he had seen earlier perfectly. All he needed to establish now was that the guy was English. He bit into his sandwich, savouring the taste of moist chicken and crisp salad. He had been there over two hours and the two Dobermans had been watching him from the gates with beady eyes.

Duane approved of the dogs. If he had a house like that he would have had two similar dogs. He knew exactly what could happen to you if someone decided to rob you. He knew because he had been a robber himself for a while. Now he enjoyed the good life. He just let loose a few bits of lead and was paid a great deal of money. It was an arrangement that suited him. He would give this guy another thirty-six hours before he wasted him, Mr O’Grady’s orders.

Duane guessed in his shrewd way that he was waiting for the money to arrive before committing himself. Mr O’Grady was one clever guy. Duane blessed the day he had met up with him.

Duane caressed the gun case on the passenger seat. It held his favourite weapon, a Ruger mini 14. It had an accurate range of four to five hundred yards and he used the .223 bullets that had been used in Vietnam. They could blow a man’s brains out while sounding no louder than a whisper.

He finished his sandwich and started his car. He drove a few hundred yards down the road, turned the car around and watched the house from a different angle.

Sure enough, he saw what he was looking for.

He picked up his binoculars and watched the man through them. He didn’t look like someone with fifty thousand dollars on his head. Duane shrugged mentally. Well, whatever the man looked like, it didn’t matter. What did matter was that he had annoyed someone in England enough to merit his head being blown off. And Duane would do just that.

George had got up early and was enjoying the sunshine in the garden. He could not help looking at the swimming pool. Its water shone, blue and cool, and he wished he had the guts to jump in it. But George couldn’t swim.

His niece and nephew were due later in the day and he was excited at the prospect of seeing them. Especially Natalie. He had seen photographs of her and she really was a good-looking girl.

Edith had informed him that she never rose before ten so he had the early morning to himself. Edith’s house-keeper, a pretty Mexican woman, told him that he should go and explore and he thought he might just take her advice. He fetched his car keys and made his way from the house. The two Dobermans growled at him as he passed them and George hurriedly opened the gates and drove through. Then, shutting them carefully, he began to drive.

He was completely unaware of the large Buick trailing him. George drove towards Orlando itself, enjoying the clean sunshine of Florida. He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and now, with the sunroof open and a light breeze playing through his hair, he relaxed. After a while he found what he was looking for: the Orange Blossom Trail.

Last night at dinner, Edith and Joss had told him about the Orange Blossom Trail, saying its lovely name belied its function. It was downtown Orlando, where the tourists who flocked to Disney only went by accident. It was the Orlando version of Soho and George couldn’t wait to get there.

He drove along enthralled. It was full of sleazy hotels advertising blue movies and waterbeds. Women of every shape, colour and description stood around dressed in tiny bikinis, their bodies tanned to a leathery mahogany. Some of the women lounged against their own trailers, mobile homes that they used to entertain their customers, thereby saving on hotel bills. George drank it all in like a man dying of thirst. He smiled at different women and was pleased when they smiled back. He came across a place called the Doll’s House which promised delights such as topless dancers and drinking partners.

George carried on driving, until he came to the heart of the Orange Blossom Trail. Gone now were the big hotels of International Drive and the shopping malls. Gone were the pleasant-faced people wishing you ‘Have a nice day now’. Here were the shanties, with people slumped outside them in various states of drunkenness or drug-induced lethargy. Here, shoeless children watched vacant-eyed as an obviously strange car drove by. Here, dirty-looking men pushed themselves from walls and lurched towards George’s car, causing him to put down his foot on the accelerator. Here was the last stop for the poor, the addicted and the criminal.

George looked around him now in dismay. Turning the car, he drove back to the Doll’s House and parked. Within seconds, women and men were propositioning him. George stepped from the car, locking it, and began to stroll along. A young girl waved at him and began to walk leisurely towards him. George stopped to feast his eyes on her.

‘Hi.’

‘Hello, dear.’

‘Why, yo’ English. Are you from London?’

George smiled. ‘Originally. I don’t live there any more.’ The girl looked disappointed. She thought London was England. ‘What you lookin’ for? Maybe I kin’ help you.’

George stood in the dirty, dusty street, in the hot sunshine, and felt a thrill of expectation.

‘I’m looking for a little fun.’

The girl smiled, displaying crooked teeth. ‘Well, you certainly came to the right place. My name’s Loretta.’

‘George.’

‘Well, George, how about you and me go for a little walk? My trailer’s just down the road a mite.’

George walked with her, listening to her chatter. She greeted people as she passed them. Her soft southern drawl was captivating, he decided. She was no more than eighteen. George climbed into the trailer behind her and she shut the door, turning to smile at him.

‘Would you like a drink. I ain’t got no icebox, but the beer’s usually cold enough.’

He nodded at her and she bent over to open the cupboard under the tiny sink. George watched her bikini bottom ride up into the cleft of her buttocks. As she straightened up with the can of beer, a little smile on her face, she saw the man staring at her strangely.

Englishmen were so cold. Maybe it was the climate. She had heard that it rained all the time there.

‘You OK?’

George smiled, his little smile that just showed his teeth. ‘Perfectly.’

Duane sat watching in his Buick. He lit himself a cigarette and settled down to wait for the Englishman to do his business.

Jack Fenton was a retired Army corporal who had lived in Bychester Terrace for ten years. He was not a man to mix very much with his neighbours, but he knew their comings and goings. His wife Daisy said he was nosy, but as far as Jack was concerned he was just observant.

Like the other night when he’d heard a car pull up late in the night, a Rolls-Royce no less, and two men going into the Markhams’ next door. That had thrown him, he admitted. The Markhams kept themselves to themselves, and in Jack’s book that was how it should be. But all the same he would have liked to know who the men were. It was a lovely car. In the end he had put it down to rich relations.

Now their overflow pipe was another matter. He had noticed when he had gone down to get his newspaper and his Woodbines that their overflow was causing a bit of distress. There was a large puddle around the side of the house. He had knocked but got no answer. So after a strong cup of tea he had informed his wife that he was just going next door for a recce. He still used army slang to the annoyance of Daisy, who hated the armed forces with all her heart.

Pulling on his wellingtons Jack went next door. It was a fine crisp morning and he took a few deep lungfuls of air, feeling the burn as it went down his throat. Then he began to cough dangerously so took out his Woodbines, puffing on one until it controlled the tickle. He surveyed the offending overflow pipe, the Woodbine clamped firmly between his teeth.

A blockage somewhere, he would lay money on it. He opened the back gate and walked into the garden, ducking to avoid the falling water. If George and Elaine weren’t careful they’d end up with damp in their walls.

Then he saw the Markhams’ back door.

He walked purposefully towards it and shook his head. There was a perfect round hole cut in the glass by the door handle.

He himself still had the original wire-reinforced glass in his door. The Markhams had a hardwood back door with four glass panels in the top.

Jack wasn’t surprised when the door opened. He walked into the kitchen, his nose quivering like a blood-hound’s.

The place was spotless.

He walked into the lounge and found the same. Nothing had been touched.

There was something strange afoot here or his name wasn’t Jack Fenton. Picking up the telephone he dialled the police. Then he sat at the kitchen table and waited patiently for them to arrive.

A Panda car finally came over an hour later. Jack opened the door and showed them the evidence in silence. The two young PCs dutifully looked around and declared him right. There had been some kind of break in.

‘Do you know where the occupants of the house are?’ Jack looked at them as if they were imbeciles. They didn’t total his age between them.

‘They’re at work, of course.’

‘Where do they work? Do you know?’

‘’Course I know. I’m their neighbour, aren’t I?’

The elder of the two PCs took a deep breath.

‘Well, if you’d be so kind as to tell us?’

‘Her, that’s the wife, Elaine, she works at the supermarket in town. What’s it called? Lowprice or whatever. As for George, he works on the Industrial Estate at Kortone Separates.’

‘Thank you. Did you notice anything suspicious at all, before you saw the window?’

‘Well, I don’t know if this means anything, but I saw a Rolls Royce here the other night. Two men got out of it and knocked here.’