Angie towelled her hair dry, brushed it, and sprayed Kenzo perfume around her neck. Charlie liked her to smell good when she got into bed. She turned off the light and walked into the bedroom.
He was standing by the window, looking up at the moonlit sky. ‘I love you, Peaches,’ he said, without turning.
She knew he meant it. But ‘love’ didn’t mean the same to Charlie Kerr as it meant to most people. It meant control. It meant ownership. He loved his car. He loved his house. He loved his villa in Spain. And he loved her.
‘Come here,’ he said.
He was naked – he never wore anything in bed and insisted that she didn’t either. She padded across the carpet and slid her arms round his waist, pressing her breasts to his back.
‘You’ll never leave me, will you?’ he said.
The moon was full and looked so close that Angie felt she could almost reach up and grab it. ‘No, Charlie. I’ll never leave you,’ she said.
‘You know what would happen if you did?’
Angie swallowed. She kissed the back of his neck.
‘I’d find you,’ he said. ‘I’d track you down and I’d kill you with my bare hands.’
‘I know you would,’ she whispered.
He reached behind and stroked the insides of her thighs. ‘You’re my wife and I love you,’ he said.
‘I know.’
‘If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t lose my temper,’ he said.‘I’d just walk away. I wouldn’t care.’He turned and pressed his lips against hers, his tongue forcing its way into her mouth so quickly that she didn’t have time to breathe. She felt herself gag and fought it. The times when he was having sex with her were the most dangerous. If she did the wrong thing, said the wrong thing, even moaned in the wrong way, his caresses turned to punches, his kisses to bites. She let him kiss her hard, and moaned softly, the way he liked. She had to make him think she was enjoying it. He stopped kissing her and held her head in his hands, staring into her eyes. ‘I love you, Angie,’ he said.
‘I love you too,’ she said, although it had been a long time since she’d loved him. Now there was just contempt for him in her heart, and hatred. She didn’t want to leave him. She wanted him dead. And Tony Nelson was going to kill him for her.
Charlie grinned, then turned her so that she was facing the window. He grabbed her wrists and put her arms up against the glass. ‘Open your legs,’ he said.
Angie did as she was told, and he forced himself inside her.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, yes, yes.’ She stared up at the moon and imagined Tony Nelson shooting him in the back of the head with a large handgun. ‘Yes,’ she moaned. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’
Shepherd walked around the ground floor of the house, checking the locks on the windows and doors. He was only going to be away for a couple of days but there had been several opportunistic break-ins in the area, according to a flyer put through his letterbox by the local crime-prevention officer.
He’d considered selling the house after Sue’s accident but Liam had protested vociferously. It was Mum’s house and he didn’t want to live anywhere else. Shepherd knew what the boy meant. He’d been the one who’d paid the mortgage but Sue had decided on the decor and furniture and there wasn’t a room that didn’t have her presence in it. Saying goodbye to the house would mean saying goodbye to Sue, and neither he nor Liam was prepared to do that.
Most of the books on the shelves in the sitting room had been Sue’s and her magazines were in the bathroom. After he’d got back from Manchester he’d cleared Sue’s clothes out of his bedroom into black plastic bags, then left them in the spare room. He couldn’t throw them away.
One of his mobiles rang and he hurried to the kitchen. It was the one Hargrove used, but a woman’s voice spoke. She introduced herself as Kathy Gift and said that Superintendent Hargrove had suggested she call to arrange an appointment.
‘Why?’ he asked. Hargrove hadn’t mentioned her.
‘Sorry, I should have said. I’m a psychologist attached to Superintendent Hargrove’s unit,’ she said.
‘I said I didn’t want a shrink,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I’m just about to leave for a training exercise.’
‘When are you back?’
‘A couple of days.’
‘Friday?’
‘I’m not sure, but I’ll be away from London at the weekend whatever happens.’
‘Will you call me when you’re back so that we can schedule an appointment?’
‘Of course,’ said Shepherd, and cut the connection. He had no intention of meeting her or any other psychologist.
He looked at his watch and cursed. He’d told the au pair agency he’d be there at ten and he was already a few minutes late. He carried his bags out to the CRV and drove half a mile to the neat row of shops where the agency had its offices above a veterinary surgeon. He parked on a meter, buzzed the intercom and hurried up the stairs.
The office consisted of two rooms, one with two secretaries surrounded by filing cabinets and a window overlooking the rear yards of the shops, and a larger office for the owner, Sheila Malcolm, BSc. Shepherd knew about the academic qualification as it was on the agency’s letterhead and on the metal plate on the door.
Shepherd apologised for being late and the secretaries made him wait while Miss Malcolm rearranged her schedule to accommodate him. She was alone in her office when Shepherd was ushered in and he assumed that either she had been on the phone or she was punishing him. He apologised again as he sat down in front of her desk.
Miss Malcolm tapped on her computer keyboard and looked at the screen over the top of her glasses. ‘You need someone to live in and take care of your home and your young son.’ She was archly elegant in a well-cut two- piece tweed suit. Her dyed auburn hair was perfectly coiffured and her pale pink lipstick had been applied with a surgeon’s precision.
Shepherd nodded.
‘A lot of our girls are reluctant to live in when there isn’t a lady of the house,’ said Miss Malcolm.
‘My wife died,’ said Shepherd.
Miss Malcolm had the grace to blush. She removed her spectacles and let them hang round her neck on a thin silver chain. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said. ‘It’s usually divorced husbands who come to us, and they’re sometimes more trouble than they’re worth.’ She flashed him a smile. ‘I’m sure you understand.’
‘My wife died,’ repeated Shepherd, ‘and, as you can see from the form I filled in, I’m a police officer. I think it’s fair to say that I’m a safe bet.’
‘Absolutely, Mr Shepherd.’
‘My boy is with his grandparents at the moment, but I want live-in help so that he can be with me.’
‘A boy should be with his father,’ said Miss Malcolm. She looked at her terminal. ‘You have a room for her, which is good, and a car. How does your son get to school?’
‘Car,’ said Shepherd.
‘And will you be responsible for the school-run, or will the girl?’
Shepherd swallowed. Images flashed through his mind. Sue at the wheel of her black VW Golf. Liam in the back seat. Sue twisting to pick up Liam’s backpack. The traffic lights on red. The Golf accelerating. The supermarket lorry.
‘Mr Shepherd?’
Shepherd shook his head. ‘I’d do it when I was in London, but from time to time I’ll be away.’
‘You travel a lot?’
‘Some.’
‘So you’d want someone a bit more mature, who could take responsibility for everything in your absence.’
‘That sounds good,’ said Shepherd. ‘If possible, I’d prefer them to be British.’
‘Ah, these days we have few British girls on our books,’ Miss Malcolm said. ‘It wasn’t always like that, of course. Some of our best girls were filling in time before university. We had Cheltenham Ladies’ College girls, but now they’re either working in Switzerland or trekking across South East Asia. The bulk of our girls are from the new
