Anyway, Gemmawas quite prepared to take her time: if she had to play the longgame, fair enough, but she wasn’t going to forget and she wasdetermined and certain that she’d get what she wanted in the end.Even though Gemma had purposely not gone into that much detailabout her childhood and family life, she had told Mark enough toget him interested. After all, his criminal career had involvedmanipulating his first set of in-laws and even if she wasn’tplanning to marry him, her mother was a sort of quasi in-law. Sincethey had got together after his release, Gemma had hinted prettystrongly that she and her mother were left very well off after herfather died, and that her initial description of her childhood asbeing a happy one was only true in part and that in reality she andAnne had a frosty if not dysfunctional relationship. She passed itoff with a little psychological babble about her not being able toface up to and admit to the actuality of her childhood, and how sheprobably found it more comforting to believe that it had been theway she wanted it to be.
It hadn’ttaken long for Gemma to start seeing Mark as a partner in more waysthan one. Soon after their first few weeks together, she realisedthat it might well be sensible for Mark and Anne to get along;something told her that at some stage she would need Anne to trusthim and perhaps, even probably, fancy him a little. Gemma was wellaware of her mother’s love of any sort of interest or flattery andof Mark’s ability to deliver in that direction.
While therewas certainly no love lost between Gemma and Anne, she had to admitthat her mother wasn’t a bad looking woman. As with so many womenof her background and generation, the cigarettes and drink hadtaken their toll but with a decent amount of make-up and herexpensive dresses she did manage to exude a sort of glamour. Aswell as that, Mark was in his mid-thirties and probably less thantwenty years younger than her mum; so really there was onlyslightly a bigger age gap than between Mark and herself. Strangehow it was definitely more acceptable for older men to have youngerfemale partners or lovers; the other way around always seemed tosmack of desperation on the one hand or greed on the other – mindyou, no doubt there were always exceptions.
Mark’sself-belief, which had been apparent even given his situation as alifer trying for parole, had amused her too. He hadn’t thought itodd or even unlikely when she had offered to arrange finding a flatfor him in her name, so as to avoid any awkward questions about hispast. It seemed he was too full of himself to assume it wasanything other than the fact she was absolutely crazy about him andcouldn’t wait to spend time with him when he got out. She’d beencareful not to overdo it, but had started to plant the idea that,as employment prospects for him might not be too great after alengthy prison term, maybe they could do something together. Shehadn’t actually, or even yet over half a year on, referred to hispretty sound knowledge of poisoning and murder, but had let slipthat maybe they could make use of her family’s wealth in someway.
Even beforeany type of plan had begun to be formulated, Gemma recognised thatit would be important to ensure that Mark believed it was he whowas the one persuading her – to feed him the ideas and let themtake hold and him take over. For now, she must make sure that sheand Mark spent more time with her mother, with more regular visitsto Farnham. She would have to start to get Anne to trust Mark, butshe needed him to know more about how much she hated her mother.Although she had started to hint at it, that was something shehadn’t really gone into any detail about with him. The key was thatit would have to be Mark who believed he was persuading her toengineer and carry through any sort of plan.
***
Mark appeared at thebathroom door with a couple of glasses of wine.
‘I’ve done somestrawberries and cream for after if you want.’
‘That’s nice.Come on, give me a cuddle; you smell of barbecue and beer. Look,I’ve been thinking, let’s go up to my mum’s tomorrow, I need totalk to her about what she’s going to do with the house andeverything. Thing is, I’m getting a little worried ’cos the lastcouple of times I’ve talked to her she’s sounded a bit odd, and I’mgetting a bit bothered about her desperation to find a new man.Even though she looks a bit of a wreck without her make-up, she’sstill only in her mid-fifties and I’m not too keen on anyone elsehoming in on her, and particularly her money.’
That wasenough of a hint for now. She wrapped herself in a towel, directedhim to the bedroom and lay back and let Mark take over. He reallywas getting quite adept and seemed to enjoy it too. After she hadfinished, she undid the buttons on his jeans-cum-shorts, checked hewas hard enough and pulled him on top of her. He didn’t take longhimself.
‘I reckon all thoseyears away has certainly improved your technique. I bet you’rebetter than ever now that you’ve had all that time to appreciatewhat you were missing.’
There was noharm in a little flattery after all; and he was pretty good, shehad to admit.
‘Come on,after I’ve tried your skills in the dessert area let’s get dressedand walk into town. I fancy a drink or two tonight.’
***
Althoughthey’d got through another couple of bottles at the Angel Inn inthe centre of Petworth and meandered back the half mile or so homewell after closing time, Gemma woke up early the next morning. Thesun was streaming through the little upstairs cottage window andshe could see the cows were already well into their day’s munchingand chewing. She phoned her mother and said she and Mark fancied aSaturday drive and would call in and bring something
