Capital Offence

Chapter 22

Friday 7th June

19 days left

 

Vaila Hoswick started the day with an invigorating shower. It was a good shower unit - one with a big head delivering a strong, forceful flow of hot water - one of the better features of her small house a few miles inland from the coast of the East Neuk of Fife.

She wrapped a towel around her hair, and otherwise naked, stepped back into the bedroom. Hanging on a chair was a checked shirt and a diagonally striped silk tie. Her lover - a young gentleman farmer - pushed a hank of blonde hair back from his eyes and smiled at her. He reached out his hand from under the sheets. She took it gently in hers, and stepped forward so that his fingers slid under the mound of her pubic hair, still dripping from the shower. For a moment, shutting her eyes, she kneaded his fingers into her warmth.

Then she shook herself and stepped away, picking up some clothes and starting to get dressed.

“Not this morning, I’m afraid. I’ve too much to do, and if we get started again that’ll be us till lunchtime.”

“Aw, Vaila. Come on pussycat...”

“That’s yer lot. You can fuck off now. Sex maniac.”

The young man looked disappointed, although he couldn’t exactly claim to be frustrated after last night’s session.

“Go home and have a wank, if you’re still gasping. Don’t you have livestock to shag?”

“Vaila, it’s not the same.”

“Next time I’ll moo, then.”

“Now you’re just trying to get me going again.”

“Dream on...”

And Vaila picked up an assortment of putty coloured tweed garments and a pair of fawn corduroy trousers from where they lay, marking a trail through to the living room. Throwing them over the figure in the bed, she picked up her keys, then headed for the outer door, where she stopped to call back.

“Breakfast’s where it always is. And I’ve hidden the tape, so don’t waste time searching for it.”

She popped her head back round the bedroom door. “You were a magic fuck, as ever. Pull the door to as you go. And give me a bell soon.”

She blew him a kiss, and headed out of the kitchen door towards her car.

*      *      *

Vaila got into her old Mini Cooper and set off towards the Kirkcaldy bypass, and the road towards the Forth Bridges. She was getting increasingly concerned about the lack of progress that Jamie seemed to be making. Over the past few days the whole ordeal had been an unbelievable pressure. Yes, she’d broken up with Davie years ago, but there was just no way that you could start to get your head round the sheer monstrous process of the State slowly grinding towards the moment when it would extinguish a human life. It seemed the ultimate in coldblooded inhumanity, as vindictive and evil as any individual crime could be.

For nights now her sleep had been disturbed, both by awful dreams and by the nighttime diversions she arranged to keep her mind off the subject.

So did she really believe that Dave was innocent? She had to, but it required a monumental effort, like the character in Alice Through the Looking Glass (was it?) who believed three impossible things before breakfast every day just to keep her hand in. Dave still seemed to be claiming that he’d been framed. But the whole thing seemed so unnecessarily elaborate. Dave had no idea who was behind the events of that night. So what chance did anyone else have of working things out?