In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

Martin had begun to take her more seriously at that. It was the him that caught his attention. “What are you talking about, Tricia?”

She said with a pout, “No’ list'ning, Marty. I hate it when you don't listen to me.”

Martin knew the importance of keeping his voice pleasant, at least for the moment. “I am listening, darling. Melbourne. The heat. Australia. A promise. I've heard it all. I just don't understand how it fits together and what it relates to. Perhaps if you'll explain…?”

“What it relates to-” She waved airily round the room at everything and at nothing. Then she changed gears abruptly in that Jekyll-Hyde move so common to loadies, saying scornfully, “You soun' like such a poof, Marty. ‘P'rhaps if you'll 'splain…’”

Martin's reservoir of patience was nearly depleted. Another two minutes of verbal blind man's buff and he was likely to throttle her. “Tricia, if you've something of importance to relate, tell me. Otherwise, I'm taking a shower. All right?”

“Ooohhh,” she mocked. “He's taking a shower. And I 'spect we know why if we sniff him up. We know what we'll smell. So who was it this time? Which one of the ladies di' you have today? An' don' He 'bout it, Marty, 'cause I know what's what with you ‘n’ the girls. They tell me, y'know. They even complain. Which, I 'spect, you'd never think of them doing, would you?”

For a moment Martin considered believing her. God knew there were times when the act of simply demanding and taking what wasn't on offer wasn't enough to satisfy him. Every now and then events piled one upon the other in such a way that only a certain level of ferocity was able to compensate him for his lack of control over the countless daily irritations that swirled round him like gnats. But Tricia didn't know that beyond a shadow of a doubt, and there wasn't a single girl in his stable who'd be stupid enough to tell her. So Martin turned away from his wife without making a response to her remark. He stripped off his shirt in preparation for his shower.

She said from the bedroom, “So say bye-bye. Bye-bye to all this. You ready to do that, Marty?”

He unzipped his trousers and let them drop to the floor. He peeled off his socks. He made no reply.

She went on, calling, “He said if we wen’ t’ stralia, you and me, he'd keep his mug shut 'bout the bus'ness. So I ’spect that's what we got to do.”

“He.” Martin re-entered the bedroom, clad only in his shorts. “He?” he said again. “Tricia, he?” Within his gut, a roiling began: a nascent nausea suggesting that something previously inconceivable might actually have happened in the time during which he'd left his wife alone in the house.

“Righ’,” she said. “Just like a chocolate bar, he was. And just as sweet, I ’spect, if I'd wanted t’ try him. He di'n't come with that cow this time round, so I could've, I s'pose. Only he di'n't come alone.”

Jesus, Martin thought. They'd come back, the bastards. And they'd got into the house. And they'd talked to his airhead nitwit of a wife.

He strode over to the rocker. He knocked her hand from her breast. “Tell me,” he said sharply. “The police were here. Tell me.”

She said, “Hey!” in protest and reached for her nipple again.

He caught her fingers in his hand. He squeezed them till the bones ground together like brittle twigs. He said, “I'll cut it off. You like that pretty tit of yours, I think. You wouldn't want it to go missing, would you? So tell me right now or I won't answer for the consequences.” And just to make certain she understood, he moved his clasp from her fingers to her hand and then to her wrist. A good twist, he'd found long ago, was worth a hundred lashes. And more important, it didn't leave a significant mark to show Mummy and Daddy later.

Tricia cried out. He increased the torque. She shrieked, “Marty!” He said, “Talk.” She tried to slither from the rocker to the floor, but he had the better position and he straddled her. An arm across her throat and he had her head flung back into the wicker chair. “Do you want more?” he asked. “Or is this enough?”

She opted for the second. She told the story. He listened with incredulity mounting, wanting so much to pound in his wife's face that he wasn't quite sure how he'd keep himself from doing it. That she'd let the cops in the house in the first place bordered on the absolutely fantastic. That she'd spoken to them about the escort service ventured into the unbelievable. But that she'd actually given them the name and address of Sir Adrian Beattie-just blithely handed it over without even considering what it meant to break the confidence of a man whose peculiar needs had been serviced by Global Escorts in the past and whose same peculiar needs would want servicing by Global Escorts anew now that the Maiden tart was finally out of the way-constituted such an act of insanity that Martin didn't know how he could contain his fury.

So he said, “Do you have any idea what you've done?” as his insides tightened like a wrung-out rag. “Any idea at all?” and he grabbed her hair and jerked her head back viciously.

“Stop it! Tha’ hurts. Marty! Stop!”

“Do you know what you've done, you stupid little cunt? Have you any idea how thoroughly you've finished us?”

“No! Hurts!”

“Oh darling, I'm glad of it.” And he yanked her head so far back that he could count the muscles down the front of her neck. “You're worthless, beloved,” he said into her ear. “You're trash in a bun, little wife of mine. If your father had just half a dozen fewer connections, I'd throw you on the street and be done with you.”

She began to cry at that. She was afraid of him, had always been so, and that knowledge usually acted like an aphrodisiac upon him. But not tonight. Tonight, on the contrary, he wanted to kill her.

“They were going to arrest you,” she cried. “Wha’ was I s'posed to do? Just let it happen?”

He moved his other hand under her jaw, thumb on one side and index finger on the other. This grip could cause a mark or two. But, by God, she was such an exceptional imbecile that the consequences of damaging her seemed almost worth it. “Oh, were they?” he said, again into her ear. “And upon what charge?”

“Marty, they knew ever'thing. They knew about Global and Nicola and about Vi and her going off on their own. I di'n't tell them any of that. But they knew. They asked where you were on Tuesday night. I told them the res'rant, but it wasn't enough. They were going t’ search and get our books and give them to the Inland Revenue and charge you with keeping a disorderly house and-”

“Stop babbling!” He pressed thumb and index finger more deeply into her skin to emphasise his point. He needed time to think what to do, and he wasn't going to be able to manage it with her spewing nonsense like a vomiting cat.

All right, he thought, one hand still in Tricia's hair and the other at her throat. The worst had happened. His dearly beloved-possessing all the presence of mind of a melting ice cube-had been the one to parry with the cops on their second go in Lansdowne Road. That was unfortunate, but it couldn't be helped now. And Sir Adrian Beattie, not to mention the thousands he was willing to spend in a single month just to gratify the more eccentric of his urges, was undoubtedly lost to their ability to regain his custom. He might take others with him if he was willing to spread the word to his fellow puling bottoms that his name and inclinations had been made known to the police by a source hitherto unapproachable. But there was a saving grace: The cops had nothing on Martin Reeve in the long run, had they? Just the blathering of a smack user whose credibility was about as unimpeachable as a con man's in the act of selling eighteen karat “gold” necklaces at Knightsbridge Station.

They might come to arrest him, Martin thought. Well, frigging let them. He had a solicitor who'd have him out of the slammer so fast, the cell bars might have been coated with axle grease in anticipation of his rapid departure. And if he ever had to stand in front of a magistrate or if he was ever charged with something other than introducing gentlemen with a taste for quirky encounters to appealing and intelligent young women willing to take an active part in those encounters, he had in his possession a list of clients from so many lofty positions of influence that the multitudinous strings that could be called upon to pull on his behalf would make the Inns of Court, the Old Bailey, and the Metropolitan Police look like marionette conventions.

No. He had nothing to worry about in the long run. And he was as likely to have to go to Australia as to the moon. Things might be a little unpleasant for a while. Certain newspaper editors might have to be paid to quash a story here and there. But that would be the extent of it aside from the cash he'd also probably have to pay out to his solicitor.

And that likely-and significant-expenditure pissed him off in a very big way. So much