Behind Closed Doors(68)

‘Of course you’re not going to go mad,’ he retorted, pushing me into my bedroom and closing the door.

‘I might!’ I called after him. ‘I just might! And I want my whisky in a glass!’

I don’t know whether it was because he’d refused me everything else I’d asked for or if he was worried that I really would go mad, but, whatever the reason, when he came back ten minutes later, he was carrying two glasses.

‘Thank you,’ I said, taking a sip. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘It’s about the Tomasin case. He married an actress, didn’t he? Dena somebody or other? I seem to remember reading something about it, back in the days when I was allowed to read newspapers.’

‘Dena Anderson.’

‘So is she accusing him of beating her up?’

‘I’m not allowed to discuss my cases.’

‘Well, everybody here today seemed to know about it so either you haven’t been very discreet or it’s common knowledge,’ I said reasonably. ‘Doesn’t he give most of his fortune to good causes?’

‘It doesn’t mean he’s not a wife-beater.’

‘What did Adam mean about her having a lover?’

‘Adam was just being provocative.’

‘So there’s no truth in what he said.’

‘None at all. One of the tabloids invented the story to discredit her.’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘Because Antony Tomasin is one of the shareholders. Now, drink up—I’m not leaving here without the glass.’

Once he’d left, I took the screw of tissue out from under my mattress and opened it. I counted out the pills; there were twenty in all. I had no idea if that would be enough to kill Jack, especially as I was going to have to use some on myself, first of all to find out how strong they were and, secondly, to see if they would dissolve in liquid once they’d been crushed. Going into the bathroom I tore two sheets of toilet paper from the roll and, after a lot of deliberation, put four of the pills between them, hoping it would be enough to knock me out without making me ill. I put the paper on the floor and crushed them as best I could with my foot. I had no cup to put the resulting granules in so I used the top from my shampoo bottle as a receptacle and added some water. They dissolved a little, but not quite enough and, as I drank them down, I knew I’d have to find a way of grinding the rest of the pills into a finer powder.

I started to feel drowsy some fifteen minutes later and fell asleep almost immediately. I slept solidly for fourteen hours and, when I woke, I felt slightly groggy and unbelievably thirsty. As Jack was almost twice my weight, I reckoned that eight of the pills would have more or less the same effect on him but that sixteen wouldn’t be enough to kill him outright. It was a major blow, as it meant that I’d have to find a way, once he was unconscious, of finishing everything myself. But even though I wanted him dead, I wasn’t sure that when it actually came down to it I would be capable of going down to the kitchen, fetching a knife from the drawer, and sticking it into his heart.

I decided not to think that far ahead and concentrated instead on getting Jack to stay a little longer with me when he brought me my whisky in the evenings, reiterating what I’d told him before, that I felt as if I was going mad with no one to talk to all day. I hoped that eventually he would feel comfortable enough to start bringing up a whisky for himself, as he had on the day of Millie’s party, because if he didn’t, I would have no way of drugging him.

My lucky break came when the Tomasin case didn’t turn out to be as straightforward as he expected. A week into the court case, as I sat on the bed sipping the whisky he had brought me and listened to him moaning about the number of character witnesses Antony Tomasin had brought in, I told him he looked as if he could use a drink himself and he went down to fetch one. From then on, every evening he brought up two glasses and, when he began to linger longer than before, I understood that he needed to talk about what had happened in court that day. He never discussed the case with me in depth, but from what he said it was obvious that Antony Tomasin was putting up a robust defence, with a string of influential people attesting to his good character. The case began to drag on and, because Jack never mentioned our trip to Thailand, I presumed he had cancelled it, or at least postponed it.

On the evening before we’d been due to leave, Jack came up to my room carrying the usual two glasses of whisky.

‘Drink up,’ he said, handing me a glass. ‘You need to pack.’

‘Pack?’

‘Yes—we’re going to Thailand tomorrow, remember.’

I stared at him in horror. ‘But how can we go away if the case isn’t over yet?’ I stammered.

‘It will be tomorrow,’ he said grimly, swilling his whisky in his glass.

‘I didn’t realise the jury were out.’

‘They’ve been out for two days. They’ve promised the verdict before lunch tomorrow.’

Looking at him closely, I noticed how drawn he looked. ‘You are going to win, aren’t you?’

He knocked back most of his whisky. ‘That stupid bitch lied to me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She did have a lover.’

‘So it was him?’