Cardinal Obsession Read online

  When he had finished the whiskey he took another, then dressed carefully in a freshly laundered, open-necked shirt and light grey trousers. His skin tingled and he enjoyed a barely subdued feeling of expectation. He had the premonition that the remainder of his stay at Chollerford was going to be interesting.

  Gilbert experienced a feeling of acute disappointment when the woman failed to appear in the dining room. The room was crowded; a large number of people had come out from Newcastle for some kind of celebration, and Gilbert was forced to relinquish the table he preferred, located near the window with a view over the gardens. His was a single table, near the door. It gave him a view of the whole room, and the noisy celebratory group ranged alongside the windows, but the woman he was looking for did not appear. He ate silently, accompanied his meal with a bottle of Pinot Grigio and tried to dampen down his frustration.

  He was not disappointed later in the evening. After finishing his meal he decided to take a nightcap in the bar. He found a table in the corner, facing the door, and sat quietly, a little morose. While he sipped his drink, he observed the room but there was no one there who aroused his interest. He was still there when the bar gradually emptied and a small group of travellers – members of a cricket club it would seem from their rowdy conversation – finished their drinks and disappeared back to the car park; he heard the rumble of their car engines as they headed back towards Newcastle.

  Eleven o’clock was chiming and he was about to relinquish his seat when the woman came in.

  She looked at him; her glance held his for a few seconds. She had bright, sharp blue eyes, but there was something promisingly languorous in her glance as she seemed to look him up and down. It was not an indifferent inspection. Paul Gilbert felt a quickening of his pulse.

  She moved towards the bar where the barman, who had earlier showed signs of hoping that his solitary customer would give up and go to bed, welcomed her with an ingratiating smile. Gilbert heard her ask for a whiskey straight. She eyed the clock and then suggested that the barman might wish to serve her in the residents’ lounge. He nodded, she turned away, but as she left, she glanced briefly at Gilbert. Their eyes met and he watched her as she moved gracefully from the bar. There was little left in Gilbert’s glass as, after a few minutes, he rose and followed her into the lounge.

  His philosophy had always been that a man had to take his chances when they arose.

  The woman was seated, one leg crossed elegantly over the other, on a settee near the window. Outside, the evening was darkening into the deep blue of northern summer evenings after the last distant, fading glow of the dying sun. He strolled towards her, then stood over her, smiling, with his half-empty glass in his hand.

  ‘Bit late to start drinking,’ he suggested.

  She looked at him coolly, but made no reply. As he stood there, feeling slightly foolish, the barman came in with a tray and the whiskey. Just as he proffered it to the woman, Gilbert stepped forward.

  ‘I’ll take that. And could you bring me a brandy and soda?’

  The barman glowered, hesitated then allowed Gilbert to take the bill from the tray. Gilbert glanced at it then said, ‘You can add both drinks to my room number.’

  The woman made no comment as he signed the bill with a flourish.

  She took her drink from the tray while Gilbert stood above her and finished the half-empty glass in his hand. She stared at him with cool eyes as she sipped at the whiskey. But excitement coiled in Gilbert’s veins as he realized she had raised no objection to his action.

  He placed his empty glass on the table beside her. ‘Didn’t see you at dinner.’

  She shrugged. ‘I ate in my room. I like my own company.’

  ‘It was a bit noisy. You were wise.’

  She seemed distant yet she had accepted his paying for her drink, and there was something in her languorous attitude that made him feel his time would not be wasted.

  ‘So,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m interested. Are you?’

  He could read nothing in her eyes now, as she glanced at him. ‘Interested? In what?’ she asked after a few moments.

  ‘In carrying on this conversation for a few hours.’

  ‘I didn’t think we were having a conversation.’

  ‘It could develop into one. Or something else.’

  Now, there was a hint of a smile upon her lips. They had a luscious curve to them. He felt he was making progress. He stared at her, suddenly grinning like an excited schoolboy. It seemed to him she was making up her mind about something, in a somewhat calculating fashion.

  She showed her teeth in a smile: her teeth were white, even, and her smile seemed almost predatory. ‘All right. I’m bored. I’ve nothing better to do, so, let’s converse.’

  ‘My name’s Gilbert … Paul Gilbert. I’m an author of sorts … I produce photographic essays, and I’m doing one on Hadrian’s Wall.’

  ‘Photographic essays,’ she considered soberly. ‘I would have thought that’s a bit old hat … surely it’s been done often before.’

  Gilbert put her right on that score. He sat down beside her and enthusiastically, he told her of the crags above Whin Sill, the hills the centurions had watched, the savage raids of the men from the north; he tried to instil in her the excitement he felt at the exaltation of the romance and history of the Wall, and how he tried to capture that history and sensation in the photographs he composed. But after the barman had brought him his brandy he was disappointed to realize that he had not managed to stir her imagination, had made little impression upon her by his erudition, and had not succeeded in overcoming her languid, almost bored air. He was a little disappointed and more than a little desperate, he had hoped she would have possessed intellectual qualities as well as beauty. Although he admitted to himself it was not her mind he was really interested in, he would more than settle for a close physical relationship and he still felt it was more than a possibility.

  When she had almost finished her drink he suggested they might take a walk on the terrace in the moonlight.

  The moon was bright. It gleamed silver on the river. As they strolled, each with glass in hand, the woman’s shoulder touched his briefly and he shivered.

  ‘You haven’t told me your name.’

  She hesitated, as though considering that to give him her name would lead to an unwanted intimacy. Then she shrugged. ‘Eileen,’ she said at last and turned her face to his.

  It was casual and yet meaningful. She raised her head slightly. It was with a certain surprise, mingled with excitement, that he leaned forward to kiss her. There was still a lingering disappointment in him when it was over. Her kiss had seemed very practised, almost professional but devoid of any emotion, and he felt it was as though she was merely experimenting, trying to determine whether she really wanted to be kissed. It was a curious experience, but on the other hand it was a start, and he was not the man to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak.

  ‘How long are you staying at The George?’ Gilbert enquired.

  ‘Just tonight.’

  ‘Then we don’t have much time, do we?’ he ventured.

  ‘No. And it’s beginning to get cold out here.’

  This could be the start of something, he thought … or the end. He hoped it was the former. Certainly, there was something in her tone that suggested he should try his luck. So he asked, and she agreed almost immediately that they could share a drink from the mini-bar in her room, but that she’d like to go ahead.

  Gilbert stood on the terrace after she had gone, alone in the gathering darkness, as he finished his drink.

  It was all happening so quickly, and yet there was something cold and calculated in her attitude. Oddly enough that only served to increase his desire. His throat was dry. He had the impression she hardly saw him as a person, merely a man. He could have been anyone. A one night stand. Not that there was anything wrong with that. And though he liked directness he still felt in sexual matters there should be more … more of a civilize
d approach, a bantering, sexual innuendo, physical awareness, a savouring of the sexual opportunity. Like sipping good wine.

  This had been too quick to be entirely satisfactory. But perhaps he was too much of a romantic. If she was available, why should he worry?

  The thought of the woman’s body still excited him. Ten minutes, she had suggested, but what was a matter of a few minutes between friends? He left the terrace, walked through the lounge and took the stairs to the first floor.

  The corridor was quiet. She had told him she was in Room 14. When he reached her room he tapped lightly on the door with the tips of his fingers.

  ‘Eileen?’

  There was no immediate reply.

  Gilbert waited, tapped again, more heavily this time but there was still no answer. The exulting smile began to harden on his mouth, and he chewed his lower lip. He knocked again but the silence grew around him as an angry knot began to form in his stomach. He tried the door, but it was firmly locked against him. A few minutes ago he had been feeling rather superior, aware of a vague disappointment that the woman hadn’t played a long waiting game with him but prepared to accept all that she had to offer. Now that the feeling had evaporated, the ache in his loins had turned into a compound of desire and frustration and anger. He rapped his knuckles once more on the unresponsive door and then, as the fury of frustration began to mount in his chest he turned angrily away, marched down the corridor, went back to his own room.

  She had made a fool of him, played with his feelings, probably had never had the intention of welcoming him into her room. He walked the length of his own bedroom, time and again, clenching his fists in the darkness. His skin felt sharply sensitive, his mouth was dry, and there was a pounding anger in his head. The flash of a car’s headlights briefly illuminated the darkness of his room and he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His eyes were bright with anger.

  He undressed quickly, throwing his clothing savagely to the floor. He lay on his back in the bed, staring sleeplessly at the ceiling. He knew it was going to be a long, lonely night, scarred with his sexual frustration. He turned over, lay on his face, seeking to control the urgency of his body.

  Gilbert’s mood of black anger lasted through till dawn, outliving the frenzied twisting sleep that he tossed through. When he finally gave up, rose and went to the window he realized there had been a light rain during the night but the clouds had washed away under the morning sun. It was only six o’clock but Gilbert showered, dressed, walked out of the hotel and made his way along the road eastwards towards Chesters.

  He did not want to face the woman’s cool triumph at breakfast. She had led him on, played with him, made a fool of him and he would not allow her the satisfaction of seeing his sour countenance in the dining room. Even if she deigned to appear, though he suspected she might if only to enjoy his discomfiture. He took the footpath from Chollerford Bridge up to the abutment of the old Roman structure that had carried the walk and the Wall across the North Tyne. He stood and stared at the lewis holes that had been dug in the distant past, holes that had been used for lifting the great stone blocks of the Roman-built bridge, visible still after the centuries.

  The phallus carved by a bored legionnaire centuries ago on one of the stones mocked him, sharpened the memory of his humiliation the previous evening.

  Gilbert walked briskly back down to Chesters Fort, the wind cool on his burning face. He had an uninterrupted view of the river and all about him was quiet, the hills calm and green under the morning sun, a contrast with his raging fury. He cursed the woman. She had led him on and then she had lain in her bed, laughing into her pillow as he had knocked in frustration at her door. It would certainly not have been virginal fears that had made her bar the door to him; he remembered the confident expertise of her kiss.

  He was unable to fathom why she had behaved the way she had, and the nagging ache was still in his body. He walked through the car park, paying little attention to the solitary car parked there. The gate to Chesters was open and he walked through, his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched disconsolately.

  The mood left Gilbert when he reached the ancient bath house. He stood on the remains of the Roman walls and once again looked down to what had been the hot bath house and the latrines, and he then turned away, walked towards the river, gazing over the slow-moving Tyne where it curved in a long, turgid bend at the bottom of the slope.

  It was then that he saw the man’s fingers.

  They were curling lifelessly, half-closed. Against the rough hewn stone of the bath house wall, the dead thumb was cocked in a macabre gesture of male triumph.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was not the screaming from the next door apartment that offended Chief Inspector James Cardinal.

  After all, in his view, the noise was connected to perfectly legitimate sexual activity on the part of the neighbours and was therefore none of his business. But his wife saw it in a different light. It was, she advised him, like living next door to a brothel. He was not sure how she felt able to make this comparison, having led as far as he was aware a somewhat sheltered life. And secretly he rather envied the vigorous activity that seemed to be going on next door; his own marriage held no such excitements. What offended him was his wife’s insistence that he should do something about it.

  She argued, ‘What is the point in being a policeman if one couldn’t sort such things out?’ It was her constant complaint. It gave him a headache, one more fierce and less convenient than the one she regularly pleaded at weekends.

  Partly as a consequence of the usual weekend nagging, when he entered the office on Monday morning he was in a bad temper, his brow furrowed with pain, unwilling as usual to seek relief in painkilling drugs, deeming it more appropriate to fight the pain by normal, natural means. The triumph of the will. His mood was not improved by the sight of Detective Sergeant Grout seated in Cardinal’s chair in the office.

  The sergeant rapidly leapt to his feet when Cardinal entered. Cardinal scowled; the sergeant clearly had ideas above his station. He grunted in dissatisfaction, aware that his mood was souring him. Maybe he was getting old. Maybe he ought to think about retiring. The prospect alarmed him. A lifetime of being nagged about unimportant, inconsequential matters. But was that being fair? They were important to his wife.

  As for Sergeant Grout … he was a good man, a solid, dependable officer occasionally endowed with flashes of flair and intelligence, the sort of man Cardinal needed at his side. Cardinal was aware that his own qualities depended upon a dogged persistence, rather than a sharp insight into the vagaries of human behaviour – he was a man who lived his professional life on a basis of stubbornness and hard work. Grout was different, he was able to supplement Cardinal’s qualities by quite different abilities.

  But there were occasions when Cardinal regretted that he had been forced to accept Grout into the detective squad based in York. He had been unable to resist the appointment, of course, the Chief Constable had spoken to him about it.

  ‘The fact that young Grout is my nephew has nothing to do with the matter,’ the Chief Constable had insisted. ‘You can take a look at his file. The boy has qualities that we can use under your control. He’s a bit headstrong, I admit, but you can knock that out of him. And from your point of view, James, you could perhaps profit from the assistance of a younger man …’ Here the Chief Constable had smiled like a predatory wolf. ‘Someone not quite so dyed in the wool. You and I, we come from the old school, so Detective Sergeant Grout might bring some light into the darkened rooms of our experience… .’

  Darkened rooms, Cardinal thought grumpily. It was rumoured that the Chief Constable wrote poetry in his spare time. The fact was that Cardinal sometimes found Grout a bit too much to bear.

  He hadn’t really tried to work out why. Physically they were very different: Cardinal was tall, lean, narrow-featured; Grout was of a stocky peasant build, broad-shouldered with a disarmingly open visage. There was the fact that Grout was rea
ding Law in his spare time – which Cardinal tried to keep to a minimum – and had acquired a working knowledge of Urdu, of all things, while James Cardinal thought only of putting his feet up during the rare occasions when he found himself not occupied in or pondering over the cases he was currently working on. But added to all this was the fact that Grout was of a personality that seemed difficult to ruffle. When Cardinal snarled at him Grout showed little reaction other than a setting of the lips and the raising of his chin a trifle. Even when Cardinal had caught him seated in the Chief Inspector’s office, in Cardinal’s own chair.

  This irritated Cardinal, and left him with a vague feeling of inferiority, even if he was the senior officer.

  Grout had scrambled out of the chair as Cardinal came in, but seemed unaffected by the scowl Cardinal had directed at him. The detective chief inspector now stood in front of the window, massaging his temple with probing fingers. Detective Sergeant Grout was in the office because Cardinal had summoned him, but the chief inspector was in no hurry to explain the reason, it would do Grout good to be kept waiting.

  ‘Did you finish the report on the Elstrom manslaughter charge?’ Cardinal asked at last, in a sour tone, as he stood staring sightlessly out of the window.

  ‘It’s on your desk, sir.’

  ‘And the bribery offence?’

  ‘It’s with Maggie, being typed up. She reckons it’ll be completed early this afternoon.’

  Maggie. Cardinal flicked an angry glance over his shoulder. He did not approve of familiarity with the civilian staff. Grout seemed generally popular in headquarters and adapted socially with much more ease than Cardinal was capable of. He gritted his teeth, turned away from the window and sat in the chair behind his desk. Grout remained standing. Cardinal eyed him bleakly, making no secret of his mood.

  ‘I believe you’ve put in for leave.’