He pushes himself up and lies on top of her, trying to support himself with one hand while the other fumbles with his trousers. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, only knows that this was meant to be.
The girl’s eyelids flutter for a second as he enters her and then she sighs, a long exhalation of air, the breath warm on his face. Then she is still again and he’s the only one moving, his gasps now matching his rhythm, her face frozen but serene.
‘Oh God!’ he cries, as mere seconds later his body convulses. Now he falls on her in utter bliss and amazement, moaning in her ear, telling her that he loves her more than anything and will do so forever and ever and ever.
She says nothing and her eyes stay shut as he continues to whisper to her, to promise her his heart and soul. And then she blinks at a sound from outside.
Voices.
She pushes him off and stands, hurriedly pulling up her knickers and tidying her dress.
‘Stay,’ he pleads. ‘Stay with me!’
She shakes her head, nothing in her eyes but contempt. She moves across the shed, flings the door open, and vanishes into the garden.
He turns to the door, pulls it shut and then slumps back down to the floor. The moment has gone and he wonders if anything can recapture the feeling he had as she lay there beneath him.
The next day he goes to the girl’s house. Knocks on the door. Her mother answers. No, he can’t come in. Her daughter doesn’t want to see him. The mother raises her hand as if to shoo him away like a bothersome fly. He stares past her into the hallway where huge cardboard boxes sit in stacks. He can see a roll of carpet sticking from the door of the front room. The windows in the bay are bare, the curtains lying in neat folded piles. He gets it then. The family are moving. The girl is leaving. She tricked him.
Kendwick shook his head, pulling himself into the present and his current predicament. He reached for his glass and took a sip of his drink. The girl in the shed had engendered a terrible feeling of rejection, a feeling he’d known since he was a baby and she had reinforced.
‘Bitch,’ Kendwick said, not entirely sure if he was referring to the girl in the shed, the woman who’d smiled over the garden fence a few minutes ago or DI Savage. It didn’t really matter. They were all the same. Sweetness and light and flashing a smile or a bare patch of skin so they could take control of his emotions. And then, when they’d got what they wanted, they simply walked away, leaving him lusting after something he couldn’t have.
He’d learned to get the better of them by turning on the charm himself, but deep inside he couldn’t kid himself. He always felt weak when he saw a woman he desired, weak because of the power she held over him, weak at the thought of what he might be able to do to her. If, of course, she’d let him.
And if she wouldn’t let him?
Well, Malcolm Kendwick had ways of dealing with that.
Combestone Tor, Dartmoor. Saturday 22nd April. 4.43 p.m.
The Smith family liked to get out in the wilds on a weekend. It was part of the reason why Nathan and Jane Smith had decided to move to Devon. Weekend life before Devon, or BD, as Nathan put it, had involved a trip to the local park or, if they were lucky, an outing on the South Downs. Then, years ago now, Nathan had won a prize in a magazine competition. A Valentine’s weekend at the Gidleigh Park Hotel, on Dartmoor. The hotel was well out of their price range and the novelty of sleeping in a huge four-poster bed in a suite of rooms was wonderful. The place had a Michelin star and the food was, not surprisingly, out of this world. The break was only for two days, but the idea of a dirty weekend was fun and Nathan had imagined they would spend most of the time between the sheets. Jane had insisted on leaving the hotel, though. A stroll on the moor would burn off some of the calories and leave them re-energised and refreshed for the next bout of lovemaking.
Whatever, Nathan had thought. They’d been to Canada the previous year, South America the one before that. A walk on Dartmoor was hardly going to compare with Niagara Falls or Machu Picchu. And yet, when they’d ventured out into the cold February morning, the light had sparkled in an odd way. They’d driven up onto the moor where mist hung in the valleys as the sun brushed the tops of the tors. This wasn’t like the South Downs at all. There was nothing manicured about the countryside here. As they parked the car and got out and clambered up the heaving granite mass of Haytor, Nathan felt something stir deep inside. And when they stood on top of the rocks holding hands, he turned to his wife, and without really thinking, he said he’d like to live here. Me too, Jane had replied.
Neither of them had thought much more about the conversation until they’d driven to a nearby town and looked in an estate agent’s window. While for locals the prices might have seemed steep, for Nathan and Jane, who at the time lived in a nice Victorian semi-detached house in Guildford, nearly every property looked like an absolute steal.
After browsing the particulars for one idyllic place set in its own valley, Nathan’s hand strayed down to Jane’s stomach. He patted her.
‘Be better for him, wouldn’t it?’ Only the week before they’d come on the trip, Jane had announced she was pregnant. Nathan had been thrilled.
‘Or her,’ Jane said.
That had been over ten years ago. They made the move within six months of that February, shortly before their daughter Abigail had been born. Luka, their son, followed a year and a half later and now they were well settled, the South-East all but forgotten.
Today, the family were on an expedition to bag a couple of tors they hadn’t been to. The first, Combestone Tor, was slap bang up against a road, but Nathan had announced that driving to the tor was way too easy. They’d parked across the far side of the valley a good couple of miles away and walked over. Now, as they slogged up towards the tor, Luka was flagging.
‘Come on,’ Nathan said. ‘Iron rations when we get to the top.’
Ever the clever one in the family, Abi piped up. ‘I thought you said eat before you’re hungry?’
‘Stop before you’re tired, wrap up before you’re cold, eat before you’re hungry.’ Luka repeated the words like a mantra. ‘Abi’s right, Dad.’
‘OK then.’ Nathan stopped and reached into his pocket for a packet of glucose tablets. ‘Time for go-faster sweets.’
‘Yeah!’ Luka said.
‘And the first one to touch the rocks gets an extra biscuit.’ Nathan handed out the sweets and smiled at his wife. ‘On your marks, get set …’
Neither Abi nor Luka waited for the ‘go’. Instead, they sprinted away from their parents, attacking the hill with an energy born from youth rather than experience. Nathan and Jane laughed and began to plod up the slope, knowing they’d catch up with their children before long.
‘Great this,’ Jane said. ‘Precious moments, never to be repeated.’
‘Bloody good job.’ Nathan paused for a second and put his hands on his hips. ‘I’m all out of puff.’
‘There’s a solution for that. We need to get out more often, get you fit.’ Jane moved across to her husband and looped her arm round his waist. She pushed her fingers into the first sign of his middle-aged spread and then moved her hand down to Nathan’s crotch and gave a little squeeze. ‘There are other benefits to being fit too.’
‘Stuff sex.’ Nathan smiled. ‘Right now I’d settle for a cup of tea and a scone with plenty of cream and jam.’
‘Mum!