She had left right away then, not trusting herself to stay. Certainly not daring to smoke any more.
The fresh air hit her when she stepped outside and she knew she had better not drive for a bit. The wine and the dope had proved a powerful cocktail — in more ways than one.
She tipped back the driver’s seat in her car and crashed out for a couple of hours, eventually returning to the section house just before one in the morning. And it was not until then, her dull throbbing headache firmly reinstated, that she realised just how big a mistake she had nearly made — both professionally and personally.
She warmed herself a glass of milk, spooned some comforting honey into it, and headed for bed with a couple of aspirin, wondering, only half-joking to herself, whether she shouldn’t have a cold bath.
Even before the temptations of this evening with Charlie Collins, Rose, perhaps partly because of her four months’ abstinence, had been indulging in some strange sexual fantasising. And she worried about herself sometimes, wondered quite what she would be capable of, given the opportunity. Dreaming that she was Mrs Pattinson was only part of it. She daydreamed too. Found herself imagining being in bed with two young men, young men paid to please her. Tonight she had had a narrow escape, she thought. And lying alone in her single bed with her hot milk and her headache she could not believe that she had very nearly gone to bed with a male prostitute — and a witness in a murder case at that.
Still, she hadn’t done it, had she? In the end something had stopped her. She supposed that for her, ultimately, fantasy was fantasy and no more or less than that, as it was for most people, men and women. Constance Lange was the exception who had taken her fantasies and turned them into some kind of bizarre reality. Constance had turned herself into Mrs Pattinson, one day a month, every month. She had lived out her fantasies.
But Rose Piper couldn’t do that. She could never be a Mrs Pattinson — although sometimes she half-wished she could be.
Twenty
Charlie woke up the morning after his near liaison with Rose Piper feeling very alone. The truth was that sleeping with Rose would have provided him with just as much comfort as it might have given her. And, of course, to a young man with his track record, sex with a senior police officer investigating a murder case in which he was a prospective witness had not seemed that crazy at all. In fact he had not even considered that side of it.
He pottered to the bathroom. Italian tiles provided by the Merry Widow, bath suite from funds out of Miscellaneous, and a state-of-the-art American power shower courtesy of the Aged Water-Babe — a customer in her early sixties capable of exhibiting the sexual energy of a twenty-year-old who always liked to start her sex sessions with Charlie in the shower.
Charlie looked around him without feeling any of the satisfaction usually instigated by his beautiful home.
Avon Escorts had gone — for ever, more than likely, Charlie moodily reflected. His entire world was in disarray. He honestly believed that he had only narrowly escaped violent death. But being alive was suddenly not nearly as good as it used to be. The publicity he attracted before Constance was charged had horrified Charlie. He had always managed to kid himself that what he was doing was perfectly straightforward business. But when you saw the headlines in the Sun and the News of the World it all looked so sordid. And Charlie had never considered that he did anything sordid. There were the practicalities too. He had no work and the contents of those carefully labelled drawers in his wall safe were beginning to run low. He had tried, discreetly, to contact some of his regular customers directly. They had not wanted to know, and, under the circumstances, you couldn’t blame them, Charlie thought. Nonetheless he was still trying to fund an expensive lifestyle and he would not be able to do so for much longer unless his fortunes changed dramatically, he knew that well enough. He might even have to consider that offer from the News of the World for a big buy-up piece about his exploits with Mrs Pattinson to run at the end of the trial. He shuddered at the thought. Charlie was used to being admired and envied by his friends and family. He didn’t like his new image at all. In fact his standing was in any case so low that a full and frank News of the World expose probably wouldn’t make much difference.
For several weeks he had been trying to call his younger sister Daisy in London where she lived with her new husband, Jarvis, the up-and-coming solicitor. Charlie had not spoken to her since the truth about him had become public knowledge. Or rather she had not spoken to him, he feared. He had left several messages on her answering machine but she had not responded.
He looked at his watch. It was not yet 8.00 a.m. He decided to go for it. This early would be a good time to catch her. Surely she would answer the phone. She did. And more than anything else she sounded embarrassed.
‘Hi, Charlie, I’ve been meaning to call you,’ she said, her manner indicating that she had had no such intention.
‘I just wanted to talk to you, explain a few things, you know...’ he began.
‘Yes but I can’t, not now, uh... I have to go out...’
It was abundantly clear to Charlie how ill at ease his sister was. There seemed little doubt that he was the last person in the world she wanted to Hear from. That hurt. That hurt a lot. Charlie had always adored Daisy, and until these last few months had been quite confident that she felt the same way about him.
He didn’t know what to say. She saved him the bother. He could hear the sharp intake of her breath down the line. After just a brief pause she began to speak again.
‘Look I’m sorry, Charlie, you may as well have the truth.’ Her voice was quite firm now. She still sounded embarrassed though. ‘I know Jarvis would rather you didn’t call here again. It’s his job, you see. We can’t afford to be associated with you.’
Stunned, he heard himself mutter something half-apologetic. He rang off straight away. And that was his beloved kid sister for whom he would walk over broken glass. What chance did he have? The wedding, when he had been so pleased to make his family happy, to give them things they couldn’t give themselves, had been only five months ago. It seemed like something out of a different world now.
Worst of all, of course, was having so dreadfully disappointed his mother. He had not seen her since the day that the news had broken and she had asked him to leave her home. She had been so angry, angrier than he had ever seen her in his life.
‘I will not have a prostitute in this house, male or female,’ she had said, the hurt shining out of her. ‘You are no son of mine.’
It wasn’t the anger that got to him though. It was her pain that he could not bear to see. He had not known what to say or do, so he had simply packed his bags and left, staying in a hotel until after Mrs Pattinson was found and he had felt it safe to return to his flat.
He had called his mother several times since and she had been every bit as reluctant as his sister to speak to him, he knew that. But she had not told him not to call again. She had told him she did not want to see him, although when he had asked starkly, ‘Not ever?’, she had replied: ‘Not yet, certainly not yet.’
Perhaps he should take that as encouragement, he thought, and on this particularly grim and lonely morning he decided to take the chance, to turn up unannounced at his mother’s house.
The BMW purred into powerful action at once, but not even the car could give him any joy as he ploughed through the city traffic into St Paul’s and up the Ashley Road.
His mother was cleaning the house when he arrived. He thought that it looked even more sparkling than usual. Perhaps she was using housework as a kind of therapy.