Sleeping Cruelty

Chapter four

On that evening’s news programmes William did not come across well. Blustering, he denied any knowledge of Maynard’s sexual predilections, and refused to be drawn into any discussions on weird sexual practices. He said he was saddened by the death of a friend, and hoped people would remember Andrew Maynard as a young, highly intelligent, well-meaning man. When asked whether he had removed any items from Maynard’s home, he remained silent.

The press had a field day. They printed exclusive interviews with Maynard’s cleaner, Mrs Skipper, and his secretary, Sara Vickers. Both women spoke of Maynard’s private life in a way that was easy to embroider. William’s next few days were beyond his worst nightmare. The affair mushroomed and dragged in people from under every stone of his own past. A photograph of William with his arm around Maynard appeared on the front page, an innocent photograph, with four other people cut from it to make it appear over-affectionate, if not loving. Headlines screamed, ‘GAY MP’S SUICIDE’, and further details of Maynard’s life appeared, more photographs of him taken in seedy nightclubs, and on beaches. Where they came from was a mystery, but they kept appearing, and William constantly featured in one doctored picture or another. The trouble the press took to make it appear that William was the lover over whom Maynard had slashed his wrists was beyond belief. His first wife, Lady Margaret Pettigrew, gave an exclusive interview for one of the Sunday colour supplements headlined ‘My Husband — The Adulterer’. She had waited twenty years for her revenge and she took it with relish.

William’s humiliation did not end with her revelations. His second wife, Katherine, the mother of his two children, jumped on the bandwagon with equal enthusiasm. It was as if the two women had got together to destroy him. In a double-page spread in one of the tabloids, Katherine painted him as a mean, vicious, brutal man who spent his days trawling the streets for nubile flesh, neglecting his two children in favour of prostitutes.

Every day brought another outrageous defamatory onslaught, another person creeping out of the woodwork to tell their story. Maynard’s suicide was beginning to take second place to the hounding of William, as if his death had simply acted as a catalyst. William could do nothing but look on with stunned helplessness. None of the sexual slanders was true, but the fact that he had indeed used a few girls made it impossible to sue.

In any case his lawyer, Brian Sutherland, appeared frightened for his own reputation. William felt as if he was hitting his head against a brick wall. ‘For God’s sake, yes! Yes, I’ve hired a few call-girls over the years, but who hasn’t? It doesn’t make me some insatiable sex addict! If I’m not a homosexual, I’m a lusting pervert. Something has to be done to stop them printing these lies about me.’

Sutherland was one of the most respected lawyers in England. He warned that if, as William had admitted, he had occasionally used call-girls, then to bring a massive and costly lawsuit against someone as powerful as Humphrey Matlock, the proprietor of the newspapers, would end in catastrophe: ‘...the reason being, William, that any one of the girls you’ve known in an intimate way could be tracked down and offered money to refute these denials of yours. And as you have admitted, albeit in the privacy of my office, that you have occasionally used the services of certain illegal agencies for, ah, intimate massages and so on, you could not swear otherwise on oath.’

William interrupted, ‘But no more than any other man has, for fuck’s sake. Name me anyone you know who hasn’t,’ he snapped.

‘That, old fellow, is not the issue, because you are not “any other man” but Sir William Benedict. So I suggest, and this is my best advice, that you lie low and ignore the slanders. Look at Jeffrey Archer! For God’s sake, don’t antagonize them, just let it blow over.’

‘But it’s a bloody outrage,’ William stormed.

‘I admit that it is,’ said the suave Sutherland, in mellifluous tones as he wandered around his elegant Mayfair office, ‘but you must look at it in a logical way, old man. The fact is that you don’t want any of these women with whom you have had sexual relationships, albeit infrequently, to testify against you. And as they will want their fifteen minutes of fame while Humphrey Matlock is known for cheque-book journalism, I really do think you should just let it blow over.’

The meeting was at an end, and William knew he should heed Sutherland’s warning. He agreed angrily to do nothing, but he couldn’t help wishing for a minute alone with Humphrey Matlock so that he could swing a punch at him.

The final straw came the following weekend, when yet another Matlock-owned newspaper gave centre-page coverage to interviews with William’s children, who said they hated him for betraying their mother. He noted bitterly that neither made any reference to the substantial allowances he made to them, way over what he was obliged to pay, and that he maintained the entire family in a luxurious lifestyle.

Desperate to stem the flow, William tried to contact his ex-wives. Margaret refused to speak to him, and when he threatened Katherine with reducing his maintenance payments to the amount stipulated by the courts, he was met with screams of ‘Do that, you bastard, and I’ll make up the difference by selling the rest of our story to the highest bidder.’

For six weeks after Maynard’s death — six horrific weeks of humiliation and degradation — the country was privy to the personal details of his two marriages, his household costs, his earnings and even his children’s school fees. Now everyone thought he was an obsessive, sex-crazed man, hell-bent on personal gain and even using his own children to achieve it. However, in every single article, there was still a kernel of truth, no matter how distorted, which made his lawyers balk at legal action. Had Matlock got to them, William wondered. Was there no one he could trust? Was he really so despicable?

The answer came from his sixteen-year-old son, Charlie. William drove to the school to take his son to lunch. It was an awkward, strained occasion and Charlie was unable to look his father in the face. It was not until pudding was served that William asked, ‘Why, Charlie? Why have you said these terrible things about me?’ The boy shrugged, still refusing to meet his father’s eyes. ‘I’ve never stopped loving you, providing for you. You’ve wanted for nothing.’

Charlie looked up at last, and William noticed for the first time his son’s resemblance to himself. ‘You left us. You’ve never been a father. All you were ever interested in was making money. And now I think we should go back, Dad,’ he said. ‘My band’s got the music room booked this afternoon.’

William drove his son back to school in silence. When he leaned forward to embrace him, Charlie recoiled. ‘Bye,’ he said stiffly and got out, slamming the car door. He walked straight through the gates, hands clenched at his sides. He was hoping and praying that none of his friends had seen him. Even the car was embarrassing: no one who was anyone had a two-tone Rolls Royce with a gold Spirit of Ecstasy.

The following day William had an equally excruciating luncheon with his daughter, Sabrina. She was more aggressive than her brother, refusing to eat, and sitting with pursed lips — so like her mother’s. William had married Katherine because he wanted to be accepted in high society. She had bubbled with delight at the balls and at the races. She enjoyed posing for photos with William in the winner’s enclosure, and showing them to her friends when they appeared in the society columns. But the effervescent, giggling young socialite of courtship had vanished immediately after the wedding. She began to reprimand him as if he were a child for the way he held his knife and fork, the way he dressed. She made little jibes that exploded into huge rows. Eventually she had hired Miss Drumgoole to teach him etiquette. The truth was, William had needed to learn from Katherine so that he could feel at ease in the social circles to which she introduced him, but her scornful carping made him uncomfortable and afraid to open his mouth.

And here was Sabrina, his offspring, as like the whingeing Katherine as if she had been spat out of her mouth. She was pale, with straight blonde hair, heavy-lidded eyes with fair lashes and braces on her teeth. She might have been attractive but her long, thin nose and full lips made her face lack animation and she seemed loath even to attempt a smile. William had no one to blame but himself: it had been his choice to divorce one vacuous titled blonde and marry another. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

‘I can’t stay long,’ lisped Sabrina. ‘Besides, Mummy said I really shouldn’t have agreed to see you at all. We’ve had these press people everywhere.’

‘I am sorry,’ he said flatly. ‘Perhaps if your mother hadn’t been so eager to spill her vitriolic lies about me, this would all have blown over.’

‘I have been teased unmercifully because of you. The other girls do nothing but giggle about you, and mince around like willy woofters, pointing at me. It’s embarrassing having someone like you for a father. They call me “Rough Trade”, because of you and your boyfriend.’

‘I’ll take you back to school.’ William folded his napkin. He was too tired and too hurt to argue.

Had he brought all this vituperation upon himself? Surely there had to be someone he could call a friend. He went through lists of names, people who had stayed on one or other of his estates, all those he entertained regularly. But then it dawned on him that no one except his employees had made contact in the past few weeks. He kicked at the sofa in a drunken fury, as his father had when the bailiffs arrived to remove the family’s few possessions. Unlike his father, he had no woman on whom to take out his frustrations. At least his mother had always been there, even if it was only as a punch-bag.

His mother had scrimped and saved for him to stay at school for extra tuition, and it was she who had told him there was a way out. She always said, ‘Get your maths, Billy. You got to have maths.’ Why she had this fixation with maths he never discovered, but his high grade in that subject netted him a scholarship to Liverpool University. Sadly, she had not lived to see this and his father’s advice was that he should go out and work, rather than ‘loll around at university with a load of ponces’. Billy had rolled up his sleeves and punched his father — so hard that he sent him sprawling into the fireplace — and walked out. He never saw his father alive again.

Fortified now by anti-depressants and sleeping-tablets, William remained closeted in his bedroom where his past became his focus. There had been around forty mourners at his father’s funeral from the bars and clubs at which he had virtually lived. They all told funny anecdotes about him, what a character he had been, what bad luck he’d always had in his business ventures, how near he had been to doing well, and how many times he had tried to earn a decent living. Hidden among various drawers at home, William had found the remnants of his father’s so-called ‘business ventures’. Most were unpaid bills, but astonishingly he found a life assurance policy worth four thousand pounds. William sold the family house and made a further three thousand. Throughout his university life he hardly touched the money; his grant was sufficient to live on, and he was too scared to mention his nest-egg in case it was taken away. Not until he graduated, with a double first in mathematics and electronic studies, and moved to London, did he begin to utilize it.

In 1968, seven thousand pounds was a lot of money. Today it would have been worth almost ten times as much. William began to study the Financial Times share index as meticulously as his father had studied the dogs and, still only twenty-three, he began to accumulate a small fortune. He invested it in a small factory to make a computer circuit board he’d worked on at university. In those days the most elementary computer filled a room, but William’s circuit board was set to change that. By the time he was twenty-eight he was a millionaire — not in the same league as Bill Gates, but rich none the less. By thirty he was one of the most eligible bachelors in Britain.

But William wasn’t very interested in women. He preferred a brief fling, usually with one of his employees. It was easier, because all he really thought about was work. It had been Angela Nicholls, one of his secretaries, who had first encouraged him to attend social events, go to the theatre or the opera. On her advice William bought an apartment in Knightsbridge and joined a golf club, a tennis club and a luncheon club, and soon had a wide circle of friends. Angela gave him a confidence in himself that he had previously lacked. She was an attractive girl from a good family, the sex was easy and comfortable, and William was fond of her. When Angela fell ill with glandular fever and was forced to take time off work, he was caring and considerate, sent flowers and paid for the best medical attention. He had imagined when she recovered that they would pick up where they had left off. But hadn’t reckoned on Harriet Forbes, the willowy blonde sent by the agency to fill in.

William remembered Harriet clearly. Only twenty years old, she had an insatiable sex drive and represented all the girls he had lusted after when he was a teenager but was too shy to date. Harriet was the youth he had lost in making himself rich. He was quickly and foolishly besotted with her; Angela was forgotten. He was surprised to discover how well connected and wealthy Harriet’s family was. One evening, as they strolled home arm in arm, they stumbled upon Angela. Harriet made some stinging remark about how plain she was, and Angela ran up the street in tears. William did not follow her. He was too intoxicated by Harriet. Too intoxicated to see his relationship with Harriet for what it really was.

One day Harriet arrived at William’s apartment with an astonishing collection of ballgowns from some of the most exclusive boutiques in London. ‘For the Berkeley Square Ball tonight,’ she gasped, tugging at a zip.

‘But you know I’ve got dinner with the Japanese.’

She looked up at him with amazement. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I couldn’t take you with me — it’s a society do.’

So he was good enough to fuck and pay for endless champagne, meals and clothes, but even with all his millions he was not good enough for her precious aristocrats! ‘I don’t want to go to some tin-pot ball with a load of overdressed slags cavorting round with a bunch of chinless twats anyway,’ he snapped petulantly.

Harriet laughed, picked up her purchases and made for the door. ‘You obviously do or you wouldn’t be getting so uptight,’ she said, over her shoulder. Then she flounced out, banging the door behind her.

He remembered how he had smarted with anger, and then how he had told himself that it was time he straightened out and got back to work. For the first time in months, he called Angela, but was told she had gone to Yorkshire to stay with her family. A month later he saw her at the opera, a few seats in front of him. He was alone, and during the interval asked if she would have a glass of champagne with him. She introduced him to her party of friends, one of whom was Margaret Pettigrew. That evening they all dined together: he was attentive to Angela, but intrigued by Margaret. As he helped Margaret into a taxi she slipped him her phone number.

Two months later William and Margaret were married. William paid for the wedding, an elaborate affair that made all the society columns, even ‘Jennifer’s Diary’. Margaret’s family, it turned out, owned a stately home and acres of Hertfordshire, but didn’t have two pennies to rub together, so it was an advantageous union on both sides. The Pettigrews needed the money; William desired the social status. Again Angela was dismissed from his thoughts. In a moment of madness, William invited Harriet to the wedding, thinking she would never come, but she did, in an overlarge hat and tiny dress in skin-pink. She strode up to him, kissed him on the lips, and whispered, ‘She looks like a fucking horse!’

He smiled down at her. ‘Do you think so? She reminded me of you.’

Harriet shrieked with laughter. She was later seen leaving hand in hand with one of the waiters.

Apart from William’s business associates and staff, the rest of the guests had been from Margaret’s side: dukes, earls, judges and Members of Parliament. Everyone knew William as a business tycoon, a multi-millionaire IT magnate, and he relished the attention. During the wedding luncheon he bought his first racehorse, and was invited to the Dunhill polo match. Later as they boarded his private jet, bound for St Lucia, William was convinced that marrying Margaret had been the best business and social move he had ever made. On the plane she made a toast: ‘To Angela, for introducing us.’ William raised his glass but felt a dreadful pang of guilt. Angela had been at the wedding, but he had not even spoken to her. He knew he had hurt her badly, but she gave no indication of this, just a shy smile when their eyes met over lunch. ‘To Angela,’ he had said, and quaffed the glass in one.

During the honeymoon, after their brief consummation, Margaret suffered a bout of cystitis. William slept in another bed for the entire two weeks. During the days, while Margaret stayed inside ‘in the cool’, William remained at the bar, wondering now if he had just made one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

Back in London, Margaret devoted herself to the marital home, lavishly decorating it to the tune of nearly a million pounds. She also found a country house in Berkshire with stables and twenty-two acres of land. The cystitis recurred virtually every time they had fumbling, dutiful sex. After a year they were sleeping in separate rooms.

Gradually William spent more time away from home, and this was when he began to pay high-class prostitutes for what he neither got nor wanted at home. At Royal Ascot he saw Harriet again. As usual he was alone: Margaret had a headache. Harriet was wearing a novelty hat and the usual short, tight skirt, her pregnancy visible to all. She was not in the Royal Enclosure, and was accompanied by a rather seedy-looking young man. William spent a considerable time with his binoculars trained on her. The sight of her made him wonder if theirs might have been a long-term relationship, but that was foolish.

‘William, come and join us!’ It was Cedric, Lord Hangerford, making drinking gestures with his hand. As he entered the private box William was struck by a beautiful woman sitting alone in a corner, studying form. ‘What do I get for twenty to one?’ she called, pen poised over her card.

‘Put one pound on, you get twenty back,’ William replied.

‘God, I’m stupid sometimes,’ said the beautiful blonde, without looking up.

William bought two more horses from Cedric Hangerford, and went home to find Margaret out, playing bridge with friends. ‘She may stay with Mrs Castleton tonight,’ said the maid, grimly.

William nodded as she shut the door behind her, then flicked at the blotting pad on his desk. Bored, he looked around the room at the décor, so carefully chosen by Margaret and that terrible old queen who claimed to be an interior designer. It was an elegant study, lined with hundreds of leatherbound books. White linen was draped as curtains and a large antique mahogany desk was placed beneath the window. Margaret loathed reproduction furniture: she said it was made for the middle classes. William had a sudden urge to swipe everything off the desk and hurl the Georgian ink-well at the curtains. He put his head in his hands: he was rich, successful, and bloody lonely. He dialled Madame Norton, who ran an up-market call-girl agency. He told her what he wanted, then informed the staff that they could retire for the night. Half an hour later the doorbell rang and William answered it personally.

Nina strutted in and followed William up the marble staircase towards the bedroom. She let her coat fall to the floor, stepped over it and threw a cheap black bag on to the damask-covered king-size bed. William poured two glasses of champagne and glanced at the girl, who was looking around the room. ‘It’s on the bedside table,’ he said casually, and watched her pick up the roll of money then stuff it into her bag. She smiled sweetly as he passed her the champagne. His notion had been to try to reenact the moments he had enjoyed with Harriet, but this girl was too cheap. He realized he had made a foolish mistake in asking her to come to his home.

‘Cheers!’ She took a sip and kicked off her shoes.

William was about to tell her that she could keep the money and leave when the bedroom door opened. He caught Margaret’s reflection in the mirror and turned, holding out his glass of champagne. ‘Why, Margaret,’ he grinned, and went on with characteristic bravura, ‘would you like to join us?’

Margaret was frozen to the spot, mouth hanging open in stunned amazement. Then she started to scream.

The divorce cost William the house and a substantial pay-off, negotiated by her weasel of a lawyer, who could hardly stop rubbing his hands in anticipation of his cut. However, William’s own lawyers were clever enough to insinuate that if she did not accept his offer, they would issue a counter-action accusing her of frigidity and denying her husband his conjugal rights. He celebrated the decree nisi with Cedric Hangerford over dinner at Rules. Cedric brought along his cousin, Katherine, the leggy blonde William had met in his Ascot box. ‘Twenty to one, you’ll say yes to the coffee at my place,’ she quipped, as they left the restaurant.

William married her within the year. It was a small register-office affair, with a private dinner afterwards. But that evening the couple threw a ball at the Ritz, ensuring the marriage made not only the social columns but the glossy magazines too. Two days later they were honeymooning on safari.

It was far from the disaster of his first marriage. During their ten days in Zimbabwe they enjoyed each other’s company. Katherine’s genuine interest in wildlife and her inability to handle a camera were endearing. However, the sex was unsatisfactory. Katherine was not exactly frigid, just unloving. She evidently felt that the sooner it was over the better. William’s inexperience of dealing with someone like Katherine made it impossible for him to discuss his frustration with her.

When they returned home and moved into their new house, William discovered that Katherine was no housewife either. She was useless at organizing, hopeless with money, loathed shopping, never read anything other than Tatler and was generally bone idle. After a few months she was pregnant, and demanded that they sleep in separate bedrooms and expected to be waited on hand and foot. William soon realized that he had traded in one nightmare for another. When Katherine gave birth to a boy, they moved to a larger house. Although they employed two nannies she complained incessantly that she was tired and depressed, and spent all day in her bedroom watching television. He noticed that she was always lively enough to attend the dinners, balls and society parties she was invited to, but when he asked her to accompany him to a business function she always had a migraine. According to her, his business associates were ‘middle-class and boring’, which made William acutely ashamed and aware once more of his background.

Two years into their marriage, to Katherine’s horror and William’s surprise, she was pregnant again. After the birth of their daughter, Sabrina, Katherine locked herself in her bedroom, complaining of post-natal depression, but was overjoyed to have a daughter. However, he had had enough of the marriage. Despite that he did not file for divorce for another two years, and then only because he had found out his wife was handing over thousands of pounds to her cousin Cedric, whose stud farm was in financial difficulties. It wasn’t that William didn’t have the money to ‘donate’, it was just that every relative of Katherine’s seemed to treat him like a soft touch.

The divorce was drawn-out and costly. For all Katherine’s perpetual inertia, when William decided to leave she found the energy of a maelstrom. She wept, screamed and threatened to take the children abroad so that he would never see them again. He fought for custody, but Katherine threatened to tell the court of his trips to Madame Norton’s, determined to prove that he was not a fit father.

Since his last divorce William had been almost content. He had concluded that marriage was not for him and had vowed that he would never contemplate it again. He didn’t acknowledge that he was lonely, but buried himself in his work. Then he had met Andrew Maynard and his life changed. He found he had not only a face and a purse, he had a voice too. In return for his sponsorship, Maynard had helped him realize that he should be proud of his achievements.

After Maynard’s death William felt as though the light had gone out of his life. Now he sat alone in his study and thought. He poured himself a large Armagnac, lit a cigar, and decided to set fire to Maynard’s diaries. Then, on impulse, he decided to read them. He needed answers. Deep down he could not believe he had so misjudged the man for whom he had cared so deeply. As he unlocked the safe and took out the first diary he felt strangely calm.

In the months before Maynard’s death the diary contained frequent references to ‘JC’. William assumed this was Chalmers.

The rest had been blacked out, making it impossible to read.

William began to feel cheated as he turned the pages: there were more blacked-out passages. Then he read,

There then followed a long sequence of dreadful adolescent-style poetry, in which the word ‘torture’ featured over and over again. Maynard never referred to a ‘he’, or specifically named Chalmers, but wrote often that he was desperate to hear from JC. William found a note at the top of a page, decorated with a heart, that read, ‘JC called. I am in heaven, must get more money.’ There followed a long list of items of clothing he had purchased, gifts for JC, and then

Then more blacked-out lines, and then over the page, the ink was blotched, from tears perhaps.

William sighed at such twaddle, hardly able to believe this had been written by the man he knew. He flicked through the pages, then stopped at the sight of his own name.

William felt sick. A buffoon! He had ploughed hundreds of thousands of pounds into this egotistical pervert. How could he have been so stupid? He hurled the diary across the room.

Alone in his vast bed, William tossed and turned, asking himself over and over why he had allowed himself to be subjected to such abuse. Did he have such an inferiority complex that no matter what success he achieved he felt unworthy of it? Why had he allowed himself to be humiliated by virtually everyone who had entered his life? He had been living in some fantasy world since meeting Maynard. He had deluded himself that at last he had found contentment. Eventually he fell into a restless sleep.

He woke feeling tired, wretched, unwilling to face the day, and stayed in bed with the curtains drawn. He told the servants not to disturb him, and refused to eat. For two days and nights he cried as he never had before, until at long last he felt he had no more tears to shed. Then a calm sense of relief washed over him.

When he got up for a pee, he saw his reflection in the full-length mirror. He was in appalling shape: his eyes were puffy and dark-ringed, his face was pasty. William had never been handsome, but he had believed he was attractive, particularly since his success. He laughed bitterly to himself. Who would want him now? The depression returned. He had never been in love, had never felt passion the way Maynard had. He had wanted sex and been willing to pay for it, but he had never experienced ecstasy. Now, he thirsted for love.

He walked back into his darkened bedroom and threw on some clothes. First he called his office to say that he would be away for some time. Then he instructed his valet to pack a suitcase with evening suits and casual wear. He asked Michael to arrange for his jet to be fuelled and made ready to depart from Heathrow’s private airfield.

‘What destination shall I tell the pilot, sir?’ Michael asked.

‘Nice.’

‘Will you need your apartment prepared?’

‘No, I’ll be at the Hôtel Negresco. Book me a suite.’

‘Would you like me to arrange meetings?’

‘No, this is not business. I need...’ he gave the ghost of a smile ‘...need some space, as they say. I’m taking a break.’ He gave another wan smile. ‘Taking a break from my life, Michael. No more questions.’

The flight to Nice was comfortable, and the drive to the hotel uneventful. On arrival he didn’t unpack but telephoned the villa in Grimaud. Justin Chalmers’s villa. Part of him denied what he was doing, but the other part knew perfectly well: he was going to find water in the desert. He believed that here he would find solace for his lost soul.

A woman answered. ‘Countess Lubrinsky speaking.’

‘Sir William Benedict,’ he said. ‘A friend of Justin Chalmers. I’m going to be in Grimaud at the weekend...’

‘Really?’ crooned the Countess. ‘Then you must join us. We are having a small dinner party.’

‘I’d be delighted, thank you. If your plans change, I’ll be at the Negresco.’

‘I look forward to meeting you.’

The phone went dead and he replaced the receiver on the cradle. He had no idea what he was doing. It was the beginning of an adventure. He liked the sound of Countess Lubrinsky’s voice, but he really wanted to meet whoever had accompanied Chalmers to meetings with Maynard. Was this countess the beautiful woman to whom he had referred in the diary?

He thought again of how Maynard had described him, and his lips tightened. A buffoon! His whole body flushed with indignation. Was that what they all felt, how they all saw him? God Almighty, he wanted to get back at Maynard — at them all — and he would start with Justin Chalmers. That was why he had come to France. It was because he needed space to think, to make plans for how he would take his revenge. He would pay back every one of the bastards. No one was ever going to call him a buffoon again.