The Stranglers Honeymoon

7

At first there were two of them.

Both in their thirties. Both of them jolly and a bit merry after visits to the cinema followed by a restaurant meal together. They lived in Camden Town: this pub was more or less halfway between home and Oxford Street, and this wasn’t the first time they had dropped in after a night out.

He had been to see a play at the old Garrick Theatre — one of those incredibly thin and pointless West End hits that ran before packed houses for tourist season after tourist season. Thank the Lord there had been an interval, and he was able to sneak out and call in at three pubs on the way back to his hotel near Regent’s Park. This was his fourth.

The Green Stallion. It was turned eleven, but this was evidently one of the establishments that no longer observed the old opening hours. He had just collected another Lauder’s and another pint when they came in and asked if the empty chairs at his table were taken. The pub was full and noisy both around the long bar and at the tables. There didn’t seem to be any other empty chairs anywhere, as far as he could see. So why not? He beckoned with his hand, and smiled.

The women smiled back, and sat down. Each of them lit a cigarette, and introduced herself. Beth and Svetlana. Obviously keen to talk.

Svetlana was Russian, but born in Luton. By hook or by crook her parents had managed to wriggle out of the Soviet Union during the thaw in the early sixties, and of course it was anybody’s guess why they had given their first-born child, born in the West, the same name as Stalin’s daughter. ‘A fucking mystery!’ said Beth, laughing and displaying her forty-eight perfect teeth.

‘Beth is just another London bitch who knows nothing about anything,’ explained Svetlana. ‘Who are you, please?’

He didn’t tell them who he was. For some mysterious intuitive reason he gave them a different name and a different nationality.

But he did tell them his profession. He could see that both of them were quite impressed, and he knew immediately that he wanted them.

Or one of them. It didn’t matter which, certainly not: but for the first time for ages and ages he felt that he really must have sex with a woman.

It wasn’t clear why this was. Perhaps it was his being in a foreign but even so very familiar city. A sort of reunion — he had been there a dozen times before, but when he worked it out he realized that it must be six years since the last time. Six years. .

Perhaps it was the warm summer’s evening, perhaps it was the booze. He was agreeably drunk, and when he drank a toast with the two women, he made sure he looked them both in the eye. He couldn’t detect any trace of reluctance. On the contrary. In vino veritas, he thought, and drank deeply.

Or perhaps it was just the passage of time. He had needed three years, and now they were over. It didn’t need to be any more remarkable than that. You must learn how to wait, his mother used to say. If you are able to be patient, you will be able to achieve anything you want, my boy. No woman will ever refuse you anything, never ever — remember that.

Not even your mother.

He realized that he was sitting there and thinking about those very words while Beth and Svetlana had briefly taken their leave to powder their noses.

No woman will ever. .

It was Beth.

Presumably they reached an agreement during the aforementioned visit to the toilets, because shortly after they returned to the table Svetlana announced that she really ought to be thinking about making her way home. A few minutes after midnight she took her leave and hoped they would continue to have a pleasant evening. With unambiguous looks and routine cheek kisses.

They continued talking for another half-hour, then they took a taxi to Beth’s little flat in Camden Town Road. His hotel would have been nearer, but a home is always a home — and she had a bottle of white wine in the fridge and a chicken that only needed heating up.

Shortly after two, she suddenly didn’t want to go through with it.

By that time he was completely naked, and she was wearing only her knickers when out of the blue she decided that enough was enough. They were half-lying on her cramped sofa, the wine bottle was almost empty, the remains of the chicken were on the table, and she had been stroking his stiff penis.

‘I can do it for you,’ she said.

But she didn’t want to go to bed with him tonight. Another time, perhaps, if he would be staying on in London?

But it just wasn’t on right now. Could he understand that?

He said that he could. Moved her hand away and sat there for a while as they drank what was left of the wine. Then he heaved himself up and stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. Brushed her red hair to one side and began stroking his fingers over her soft, naked skin and the sharp edges of her collarbones.

Asked if he could give her a bit of a massage.

She nodded hesitantly, and straightened her back.

He massaged her gently for a few minutes, until her shoulders relaxed and began to sink. She said she liked it. He said that he did as well. He could feel that she was a sensuous and warm-blooded woman.

Then he felt his own blood reaching boiling point, and strangled her.

It was probably all over within about ninety seconds. He removed her red knickers and laid her down on the floor, on her back. Opened her legs wide and placed her in a position with her pussy exposed and naively inviting. Her dead pussy.

He masturbated, and wiped himself dry with her knickers.

He was back in his hotel room an hour later. Went to bed and slept until noon the following day.

His flight left Heathrow on time that same evening, and as he watched the multi-million city shrinking away into insignificance through his cabin window, he was convinced that they would never find Beth Lindley’s murderer.

Never ever.

He also thought that he had better be careful when it came to women in future. Maybe he should give them a wide berth, that would be the safest bet, of course — but if he found himself in similar circumstances at some point in the future even so, he would be well advised to think ahead.

Very well advised. He ordered a whisky from the stewardess, and noted that he was sitting there smiling.

MAARDAM

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2000