Murder, Mystery, and Magic. John Burke
Читать онлайн книгу.
she said: “Why not?”
Over a cool, scintillating Sancerre I put the proposition to her. In return for the rewarding deal I had just done with her, would she be prepared to publish a subsidised edition of Crispin Brooke’s latest novel? Yes, I knew she had already seen both of the more recent ones, and rejected them; but one hadn’t been all that bad, had it?
“Not all that bad,” she granted, “but not all that good.”
“But it wouldn’t actually disfigure your list.”
“No. Only it wouldn’t be likely to sell many copies. Precious little return for our money. Our accountants wouldn’t like that.”
“It’s not your money I’m talking about. Accountants don’t get too cross if income is guaranteed before any expenditure has to go out, do they? Crispin’s wife is offering to underwrite the book. Just so he can see his name in print again. To give his friends autographed copies. You know what authors are like. That’s all we have in mind.”
“We?” She swilled the wine gently round her glass, and the word round her palate. “David, just what terms are you on with Mrs. Brooke?”
“I’m…well, she’s Crispin’s wife, we’ve all been good friends, she’s…well, naturally I see quite a lot of her.” I didn’t dare lift a suggestive eyebrow.
There was a long silence. I thought she was marshalling arguments against the proposition, but in the end she said: “I’d rather like to meet her again. Talk this over with her, personally.”
“Is that necessary? I can act for her, the way I act for her husband.”
“Then you can arrange an appointment for her in my office.”
* * * *
On the Tuesday, Gemma made no move to undress until I had told her the result of my meeting. Then she stripped with methodical deftness and settled obediently on her back.
When we had finished, she said: “Thank you, David.”
I didn’t suppose she was offering gratitude for my physical prowess. She simply wanted to take up the conversation where we had left off.
“Has it occurred to you,” I asked, “that if Crispin cheers up, he may get demanding again? Maybe you’ll find yourself with a reinvigorated lover.”
“Would you be very jealous?”
It had never occurred to me until now. “I…I don’t know.”
“I don’t think we’re taking too great a risk,” she said.
A reverberating note of contempt had crept into that usually level voice. It was quite frightening hearing her virtually write her husband off as inadequate—and this at a time when the two of us were conniving to salvage him.
Trying to keep it light-hearted rather than dig too deep, I suggested that the best system would be for me to pay the total amount direct to the publisher, while Gemma could make regular payments to me in order not to knock too sudden and obvious a hole in the Brooke bank accounts.
“You can make regular visits here,” I said. “And hand over the instalment for my services. Give you an extra frisson.”
She smiled thinly. “If it were about that sort of thing, shouldn’t you be paying me?”
“That would muck up the whole plan. Anyway, better for you to regard me as a gigolo than for me to regard you as…well….”
“Do stop talking rubbish.”
We did stop talking for a while. She had got her way, so I could have mine.
I then told her that Nina Whiteley would like to meet her again. And suggested that we should both go along. Gemma, very cool and offhanded, said she would prefer to handle it on her own.
“Look,” I said, “this isn’t just girl-to-girl chat, you know. Not with Nina Whiteley. She’s tough. A real butch lady at heart. Not safe to tangle with her unless you’ve got good back-up.”
“I’ll tell you later how it goes,” she said with dismissive firmness.
We made love again. Or, rather, I made love and Gemma let me. But, again surprisingly, when we parted she kissed me more fervently than usual—yet with a bit of an effort, I sensed—and said: “You’re really not bad, David.”
Not bad…at what, specifically?
* * * *
Crispin was complacent rather than grateful when I called him to announce that I had found a buyer for his Dummy Run. He has always assumed the attitude of a strong, silent man of action. “About time, too. Glad they’ve come to their senses at last.” His tone of voice was the equivalent of a condescending pat on the shoulder. One of his NCOs had at last come up to scratch.
I imagined him being just as taciturn and doing things according to a strict discipline when making love to his wife. That might go some way to explaining Gemma’s own unyielding face and voice even when her body was at its most yielding. Lie to attention…at ease…wipe that smirk off your face….
Not that I very often let myself think of the two of them together. It wasn’t a picture I enjoyed.
Would you be very jealous?
The next time we were together I deliberately made her whimper. She had spent a lot of time in the bathroom before coming to bed, and her face looked set and almost hostile. She stared up at me with something I could almost have interpreted as revulsion. So I made it a bit rough, until she uttered that little moan of protest.
Having got her way over the deal to save Crispin’s pride, was she going off me?
I said: “How did you get on with Nina?”
“She’s delightful. A truly strong character. Beautiful.”
It wasn’t a word I would have used myself. Striking, yes. Strong, when it suited her, indeed. But beautiful?
“Well, it’s all settled now, anyway.” I said. “You don’t need to get too involved. From now on you can leave it all to me.”
“Oh, but we’re having dinner together next week. We’ve got so much in common.”
“I’d never have thought so.”
“You could say she regards me as part of the package.”
“Look, are you trying to cut me out?”
“You’ll continue to get your usual percentage.” It came out as a cool, matter-of-fact insult. “Your usual cut.”
I tried to keep things going my way. “Speaking of which….” My fingers strayed over her in the familiar preliminaries. “Time for some more of my perks.”
She flinched. “Don’t you think this is getting a bit of a routine? A bit repetitive?”
It wasn’t good enough. Not after all the trouble I had gone through on her husband’s behalf. She gritted her teeth—I actually heard her do just that—as I mounted her; and when I lay back she said: “So that’s what rape is like.”
“Rape? For Christ’s sake, Gemma, what’s wrong?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh, I think I’m beginning to understand. You let me shaft you when you wanted me to do something for bloody Crispin. Now it’s fixed, and I’m superfluous. Back to the joys of the marital bed? Back to normal?”
“It was never normal. Nothing like the real thing.”
“The real thing? Like what the two of us have just…?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” she said again, infuriatingly.
We parted very coolly. Early next evening, despising myself, I couldn’t restrain myself from