A Moment Of Madness

Twenty

The telephone was ringing. That was what must have woken him up so abruptly, Kelly realised. He opened his eyes blearily and hoisted himself into a half-sitting position. For just a moment he wasn’t even sure where he was. The phone continued to ring. Eventually he reached for it, rubbing his eyes to wipe the tears away.

‘So you’re there, are you?’ said Moira rather tetchily.

Kelly heard himself mumble a reply.

‘Are you all right?’ Moira’s voice was sharp.

Kelly knew what she was thinking at once. Those sleeping pills had really knocked him out. She was probably afraid that he had already started drinking again.

He struggled to pull himself together and clear his head.

‘Yes, it’s OK,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t sleep so I took some pills. One more than I should have done, probably.’

‘Oh.’ Moira did not sound entirely convinced. Kelly couldn’t blame her.

‘I didn’t realise you were leaving Plumpton last night,’ she went on. ‘We didn’t expect you to be released till today. I only found out this morning. You should have called. I’d have picked you up.’

‘I didn’t want to bother you. I just got a cab to take me to an AA meeting and then home,’ Kelly responded, wondering if the day would ever come again when he didn’t seem to be lying to everyone. ‘My last therapy session was late yesterday afternoon and afterwards they said I didn’t have to stay the night unless I wanted to.’

‘What are you going to do today?’

‘I don’t know yet.’ That at least was the truth.

‘Well, I think you should call Joe and talk to him about when you can get back to work. He’s performed miracles keeping your job open for you. He deserves a big thank you.’

‘I know he does,’ said Kelly. ‘And so do you.’

‘Forget it,’ said Moira, and rang off.

Kelly felt that she was probably making a conscious effort not to get too involved again. And he didn’t blame her for that either.

Miserably he dragged himself out of bed and made his way downstairs to the kitchen. He brewed a strong pot of tea and sat at the kitchen table to drink it. As the hot brown liquid hit the back of his throat, somewhere inside the fuzziness of his head his brain began to clear just a little.

He looked around him, taking in the surroundings of his home for the first time. There had been fresh milk in the fridge and a packet of sliced bread lay on the worktop by the cooker. The kitchen was immaculate. In fact the whole house was neat and tidy, and he was pretty damned sure he hadn’t left it that way. Moira, he thought. And it was typical of her. Only she could have been in and cleaned the place so thoroughly. Obliquely he wondered where she’d got a key from. He remembered her almost throwing her own set back at him. Nick had keys, of course, and she might even have borrowed Kelly’s own which had only been handed back to him at Plumpton House the previous day.

Either way, that was another thank you he owed Moira. He also felt guilty. Moira certainly would not approve of the thoughts which were beginning to form in his mind as he poured himself a second mug of tea.

A course of action was starting to frame itself and, although he was unsure that it was the right one, it seemed to him to be the only one. The truth, the whole truth about everything, he was convinced, was all that could exorcise the demon that his obsession with Angel had become. Suddenly he was determined that he would make Angel tell him everything, and that he just had to do that in order to preserve any of his sanity. He wanted to know the absolute truth, not only about the deaths of Scott Silver and Terry James, but also the truth about Angel’s feelings for him. In Kelly’s mind the two were inextricably linked.

Kelly’s stomach lurched queasily. He considered making himself some toast, but couldn’t quite be bothered. The last little vestige of his common sense was hanging on in there grimly, warning him that he might not like the truth very much, and also sending him the message that if he didn’t know what Angel’s feelings for him were after the way she had treated him, and after what he had seen last night, then he really was a seriously sad case.

Kelly managed a small smile. Sad or not, at least he had reached a decision. He had no particular game plan, but he convinced himself that if he confronted Angel in the right way she would tell him the truth for two reasons. First, she had seen him destroy the tape in front of her and believed, almost certainly correctly, that there was no evidence against her. Secondly, and probably most importantly, for the first time since it had all begun he really did want the truth.

Previously when he had confronted Angel he had always been looking primarily for reassurance. He had really only ever wanted things to continue the way they were while he buried his head in the sand. And he suspected that she had always been well aware of that.

This time it was going to be different.

He drained the last of the tea from the pot into his mug and checked the time. He had slept, albeit fitfully, for almost ten hours. It was now nearly 1 p.m. Surely Angel and her young men were out of bed by now, he thought. Anyway, he wasn’t sure that he cared. He was feeling surprisingly bullish. He’d drag her out of bed and make her talk to him, if he had to.

Then he thought again. She was hopeless early in the day, and 1 p.m. was still early for Angel Silver. In any case there was no point in provoking her for all the wrong reasons. He’d wait until the evening. That was also likely to be when she would be at her most lucid, recovered as much as ever from the excesses of the previous night and hopefully not yet totally stoned again.

He passed the day and early evening watching TV and psyching himself up for what he intended to do. When it came to it, however, he started to get nervous about his plan and kept coming up with reasons for putting off leaving the house. Ultimately it was almost 11 p.m. before, cursing the fact that he was off the road and would be for a very long time, he finally called a taxi to go out to Maidencombe. Repeating his process of the previous night, he asked the driver to park and wait outside the perimeter walls, opened the electronic gates and made his own way into the house. He didn’t ring the bell and wait for her to answer it, because, once again, although for different reasons, he wanted to take Angel by surprise. He didn’t want to give her time to erect her defences, something she did so well and with such alacrity.

He found her in the kitchen. She was standing by the worktop watching the kettle boil. From the doorway he saw her reach for a mug and then a spoon, trembling hands protruding from the sleeves of a grubby towelling dressing gown which had probably once been white.

Just like the night before she sensed his eyes on her and turned to face him. Her hair was a mess, platinum strands hanging lankly from distinctly dark roots, and her skin looked pale and blotchy. Her eyes were still surrounded by the black smudges of yesterday’s mascara, which blended with the heavy shadows beneath them. It looked like she had been through a long night, which had probably gone on right through the day as well. Kelly thought he had made the right decision not to confront her earlier. He doubted it would have got him anywhere.

There was an ugly bruise on her forehead which hadn’t been there yesterday, and Kelly felt that sudden dart of the familiar compassion and protectiveness which she always brought out in him. Then he looked again. Yes, Angel was still the little girl lost. There was also something pathetic about her. And he realised again that he didn’t find her beautiful any more. Indeed, he wondered how it was that he had never before noticed the ugliness that there was about her.

Her mouth set in a thin hard line when she saw him. ‘Are you going to make a habit of sneaking into my house?’ she asked.

He made no direct response. ‘I didn’t like what I saw last night,’ he said instead. He spoke mildly enough but he knew that she would see his remark as a challenge he had no right to make. That was Angel. And he wasn’t wrong.

‘What makes you think I give a damn about what you think, you sad bastard?’ she rounded on him.

It still hurt that she could be so openly contemptuous of him, just the way she had been before he had found the incriminating video. And she was so arrogant. He was just about reasoned enough to wonder how she could be, or at the very least give the impression that she was, so sure of herself, and even that she had the nerve to call him sad. Did she never look in a mirror?

‘You told me that you loved me once,’ he said, as calmly as he could.

‘Yeah, well, I had a reason for that, didn’t I? Oh, and by the way, you’re arguably the worst fuck I’ve ever had. I only went with you in the first place to stop you being so bloody nosy.’

Kelly had always suspected that too, really. None the less he was rocked by her words. Not for the first time he couldn’t understand why she was quite so vitriolic towards him, couldn’t work out why she seemed to have so much contempt for him. Maybe it was about control, and that once Angel had gained control, as she most certainly had of him, with it came the contempt for anyone weak enough and compliant enough to succumb to her. He’d often wondered why she had gone to bed with him at all. Well, she’d told him now, hadn’t she? But was it the truth? You could never tell with Angel.

Once again he avoided responding directly to her remarks. ‘I could still go to the police,’ he told her instead.

‘Really? But you destroyed the evidence. I saw you do it. You’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you?’

Kelly felt sickened. By himself as much as anything.

‘I may have a copy,’ he said, as sharply as he could manage.

‘No you don’t,’ she replied, almost smugly. ‘You told me you hadn’t made one.’

‘And you believed me?’

‘Oh yes.’

She smiled at him with absolute certainty. She believed him and was right to do so. Kelly was infuriated by his own stupidity, by the way he always seemed to play into her hands.

‘Will you just tell me the truth?’ he asked.

‘You’ve never wanted the truth before, have you, you pathetic bastard?’

She was dead right again, of course. As astute as ever. And cruel.

‘Tell me what really happened the night Scott and Terry James died. Tell me the truth, and I’ll get out of your life.’

‘I don’t actually care whether you do or not.’

That, he was sure, was absolutely the truth. He didn’t reply.

Angel was on a roll, on a high.

‘What do you think happened, anyway, John? What wonderful theory has your great investigative journalist’s brain come up with?’

Kelly shrugged; tried to sound detached. ‘I think maybe somebody had a hidden agenda,’ he said. ‘I think it is possible you took advantage of a heaven-sent opportunity to sort out a marriage that had turned sour.’

‘Really. And what does that mean?’

‘I think maybe you did kill Scott, as well as Terry James. That’s certainly what it looked like to me on that video.’

‘Is it indeed? What a pity you let me burn it then.’

‘Yes, maybe it is. But it does mean you can tell me the truth without putting yourself in too much danger, doesn’t it?’

She laughed briefly. ‘Why is the truth so important to you?’

‘Because I can’t believe that I fell in love with someone who’s as evil a bitch as I think you might be.’

She smiled, as if taking the remark as a compliment. ‘Really?’ she queried. ‘So it would make you feel better to be able to believe that I really am innocent of everything except trying to defend myself and my husband, would it?’

‘Yes, it would.’

‘Because of what it would otherwise make you?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Well, I have bad news for you, John Kelly. You’re on the right track, for once in your life.’

Kelly felt his heart begin to beat faster. She couldn’t really be about to tell him what he feared that she was, could she? He didn’t want to be right, he really didn’t. He said nothing more, instead waited for her to speak again.

Angel’s mouth, still surrounded by smudges of dark lipstick, hung open in a kind of leer.

‘Yes, I killed Scott,’ she said abruptly. ‘And God knows, the bastard had it coming.’ She spoke with a kind of studied casualness. Blurted the words out just like that. No build-up. She could have been making a dinner date or telling him about a football match.

Kelly was shocked rigid, not just by the confession Angel had thrown at him so casually, but also by the speed of it. He had psyched himself up for a long verbal tussle with her. He had banked on her arrogance, on her belief that neither he nor anyone else could prove anything any more, to make her almost want to tell the truth if he pressed her. But he hadn’t expected it to come so quickly, so easily.

Often he had no idea what kind of game Angel might be playing. But this time he was horribly sure that she had told him the simple unadorned truth. And, of course, all along he had made himself believe in her innocence. If he had done any other he would not have been able to justify, even to himself, his own behaviour.

Kelly felt physically ill. His head hurt. It was probably partly still the lurking aftereffects of the physical battering he had taken lately, and partly a kind of hangover from those sleeping pills. But that wasn’t all. This was the final blow. Kelly was quite desolate.

Angel continued to speak. Somewhere in the distance he could hear her voice. His beleaguered brain began to decipher the words. Words he didn’t want to hear.

She sounded quite conversational. As she talked she put a tea bag in the mug in front of her and poured in hot water. Rather conspicuously she failed to offer him a cup of tea, or anything else, for that matter.

‘It was the One God, One People sect which caused the problem,’ she remarked. ‘Everything was all right until then. Scott really did discover God in a big, big way. I never knew which came first, that little slag he was shagging or the born-again Christian crap. And I never worked out quite how he reconciled the two, but he did. Scott was good at justifying his actions. Always had been. Anyway, it took him over. Apart from fucking little Miss Preaching Boots he really cleaned up his act. Cut out the drinking and gave up the shit. He tried to make me do the same, but I told him to stuff it.

‘Then I found out about that plain little mouse, Bridget, the dumb slag. It was all true what she said, you know. He fell for her all right. Head over fucking heels. You wouldn’t believe it, would you? He preferred her to me, no doubt about it.’

Angel looked genuinely surprised at the thought. Her arrogance remained impressive. In another kind of situation Kelly might have been amused.

‘None the less, he still wanted to fuck me all the time, which was bloody typical,’ Angel continued. ‘He said there was nothing wrong with that in the eyes of God, as long as I was his wife. I told you the sanctimonious sod was good at justifying his actions, didn’t I? I knew that he was planning to divorce me, though. And we did have one of those fucking pre-nuptials, didn’t we? I lied about it to you and everyone else, even though I knew that was a dangerous thing to do, because I didn’t dare do any other. Also, the solicitor who drew the bloody thing up had died, so I figured it might not come to light that easily, with a bit of luck. But the dumb slag was right about it. I’d have had to leave this house and I’d have ended up with sweet FA. I had to do something about it.’

‘Are you telling me you planned it all?’ Kelly’s forehead felt clammy. He had broken into a sweat and yet he could not stop his body trembling, as if with cold. At the very worst he had thought she might have been guilty of grasping a terrible opportunity, of committing an awful crime in the heat of the moment. He had never really seriously considered that she might have preplanned the whole thing.

‘What do you think?’

Angel shot him another contemptuous look. ‘Greedy young bastard, that idiot tea leaf. And he worshipped Scott. He was always out at the house genuflecting away every time Scott appeared in view. I took him on to help in the garden and do odd jobs so that I could get to know him. I made up a story about big financial trouble. I told him that he could help save Scott from bankruptcy if he staged a robbery. I told him it was all an insurance scam, didn’t I? I gave him the combination to open the gates. I knew that wouldn’t matter because Scott and I had done that with half the people who worked here. I said I’d make sure the alarm system for the house was switched off, and all he had to do was break a window to get it, then come into the bedroom. We’d all pretend to fight, exchange a few bruises, make it look good.’

Angel threw back her head and laughed hysterically — just as she had the first time she and Kelly had had sex. Kelly clenched his fists behind his back. He didn’t want her to see how badly his hands were shaking. The trembling that had engulfed his entire body was almost out of control now.

‘Terry James was part of the furniture. He hung around here so much, even when he wasn’t working,’ Angel went on. ‘It was easy. I started to invite him in when Scott wasn’t around, told him Scott was too shy to meet his fans, kept giving him bogus messages from Scott.’

Angel shot Kelly a sideways look. ‘He liked to fuck, did young Tel, by the way. Oh, how he liked to fuck. He was hung like a donkey too. Just looking at his dick could bring me off. Made Scott look under-endowed.’

Kelly, remembering the video he had stolen, was well aware of how well equipped the rock star had been in that area. Angel knew that. She continued to look steadily at Kelly, half triumphant, half mocking.

‘It gave him a real thrill to have Scott Silver’s missus. Seriously turned him on — he could keep going for hours. How he squared that with his adoration of the great star I have no bloody idea. In the end he was just another fool who’d do anything for me.’

Had she any idea what she was saying and how she sounded? Did she believe the stuff she spewed out in that offensive fashion? Did she realise the effect she was having on him, and was that really her intention? Kelly had no idea really what she was trying to do or why.

Angel started laughing again. Kelly wondered if she was still high. Maybe that was it. When he had arrived she’d looked like somebody who had just come heavily down off a trip. Now he wasn’t sure any more. He wasn’t sure of anything.

Suddenly she began to take her clothes off — just like the first time, only she didn’t stop laughing at all. In fact the laughter grew louder as she embarked on a kind of lewd parody of a stripper at work, sliding her dressing gown slowly down off her shoulders.

‘So what difference does any of it make, John?’ she hissed at him, her mouth leering even more grotesquely as she thrust her crotch towards him and began to make a show of playing with herself with one hand.

‘This is what you want, isn’t it, you pathetic bastard?’ Her voice slipped down an octave or two. She began to use two hands on herself. ‘This is all you want, isn’t it?’

Her eyes were bright. Inside her open mouth he could see her tongue moving provocatively.

All Kelly really wanted at that moment was to go back in time. To be able at least to kid himself that he knew nothing of what she had just told him. And then to walk away, to leave Maythorpe Manor and Angel Silver behind him. For ever. But he felt rooted to the spot.

Angel stepped towards him, smiling rather unpleasantly. She put her hands on his shoulders as she raised a knee and pushed it into his genitals, quite hard.

‘You’d do anything I want just to fuck me, wouldn’t you, John, anything at all...?’

‘Stop it,’ he told her sharply. ‘Just shut up.’

He could hear the strain in his own voice. He realised that he was near to breaking point. But Angel seemed to have no idea. She just wouldn’t stop. Maybe she couldn’t stop, he thought obliquely.

Her taunting was terrible to him. He had loved her, after all — maybe still did love her, in spite of knowing all along what madness it was. Kelly felt a numbness overwhelm him. He could still hear Angel mocking him, like some dreadful slow torture, but it was as if her voice were muffled and came from a long way off.

There was a kind of mist in front of his eyes. He could only barely see her face through it. And what he could see looked so ugly and distorted. This was not the Angel he had loved so much, albeit against his better judgement, it really wasn’t. This was a woman capable of the vilest kind of murder in cold blood, capable of stabbing her own husband to death, without, it seemed, any regret. He pushed her away.

‘Stop,’ he ordered her again. ‘Please stop.’

He tried to keep his voice quiet and authoritative. Again she would have none of it. She continued to leer at him, to mock. She stepped towards him again, groping at his trousers with one hand.

Kelly thought his head was going to burst. What she had told him, all of it, about the murder, and then the taunting of him, that and what she was trying to do, this kind of ritual humiliation she seemed to be indulging in, was just too much for him. His hands were shaking wildly. He could no longer control his trembling body at all.

He pushed her away again. This time she stood her ground in front of him, just looking at him with the so familiar contempt.

‘What’s the matter, John?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you want to fuck me any more now you know I’m a murderess? Or maybe you just can’t do it any more? Do you want me to invite the boys back? Then you could watch. You like to watch, don’t you? Remember the videos?’

The videos. Those videos of him and Angel having sex, which, yes, he had loved to watch, and afterwards hated himself for. And finally a real life snuff video. For that’s what he had seen. That’s what he had destroyed in order to save Angel, because he had been besotted by her, because he had been obsessed with her, because he had been totally and utterly under her spell.

Suddenly he hated her. The bile rose from deep inside him. God, how he hated her. And how he just had to make her stop.

He took one hesitant step forward and then he lunged at her. Threw himself at her, his bulk overwhelming her, his arms flailing, striking out at her with all his might.

Yet he only wanted to make her stop. That was all. Just to stop...