Free Sleeping Cruelty by Lynda La Plante Page B

of whom was Margaret Pettigrew. That evening they all dined together: he was attentive to Angela, but intrigued by Margaret. As he helped Margaret into a taxi she slipped him her phone number.
    Two months later William and Margaret were married.William paid for the wedding, an elaborate affair that made all the society columns, even ‘Jennifer’s Diary’. Margaret’s family, it turned out, owned a stately home and acres of Hertfordshire, but didn’t have two pennies to rub together, so it was an advantageous union on both sides. The Pettigrews needed the money; William desired the social status. Again Angela was dismissed from his thoughts. In a moment of madness, William invited Harriet to the wedding, thinking she would never come, but she did, in an overlarge hat and tiny dress in skin-pink. She strode up to him, kissed him on the lips, and whispered, ‘She looks like a fucking horse!’
    He smiled down at her. ‘Do you think so? She reminded me of you.’
    Harriet shrieked with laughter. She was later seen leaving hand in hand with one of the waiters.
    Apart from William’s business associates and staff, the rest of the guests had been from Margaret’s side: dukes, earls, judges and Members of Parliament. Everyone knew William as a business tycoon, a multi-millionaire IT magnate, and he relished the attention. During the wedding luncheon he bought his first racehorse, and was invited to the Dunhill polo match. Later as they boarded his private jet, bound for St Lucia, William was convinced that marrying Margaret had been the best business and social move he had ever made. On the plane she made a toast: ‘To Angela, for introducing us.’ William raised his glass but felt a dreadful pang of guilt. Angela had been at the wedding, but he had not even spoken to her. He knew he had hurt her badly, but she gave no indication of this, just a shy smile when their eyes met over lunch. ‘To Angela,’ he had said, and quaffed the glass in one.
    During the honeymoon, after their brief consummation, Margaret suffered a bout of cystitis. William slept in another bed for the entire two weeks. During the days, while Margaret stayed inside ‘in the cool’, William remained at the bar, wondering now if he had just made one of the biggest mistakes of his life.
    Back in London, Margaret devoted herself to the marital home, lavishly decorating it to the tune of nearly a million pounds. She also found a country house in Berkshire with stables and twenty-two acres of land. The cystitis recurred virtually every time they had fumbling, dutiful sex. After a year they were sleeping in separate rooms.
    Gradually William spent more time away from home, and this was when he began to pay high-class prostitutes for what he neither got nor wanted at home. At Royal Ascot he saw Harriet again. As usual he was alone: Margaret had a headache. Harriet was wearing a novelty hat and the usual short, tight skirt, her pregnancy visible to all. She was not in the Royal Enclosure, and was accompanied by a rather seedy-looking young man. William spent a considerable time with his binoculars trained on her. The sight of her made him wonder if theirs might have been a long-term relationship, but that was foolish.
    ‘William, come and join us!’ It was Cedric, Lord Hangerford, making drinking gestures with his hand. As he entered the private box William was struck by a beautiful woman sitting alone in a corner, studying form. ‘What do I get for twenty to one?’ she called, pen poised over her card.
    ‘Put one pound on, you get twenty back,’ William replied.
    ‘God, I’m stupid sometimes,’ said the beautiful blonde, without looking up.
    William bought two more horses from Cedric Hangerford, and went home to find Margaret out, playing bridge with friends. ‘She may stay with Mrs Castleton tonight,’ said the maid, grimly.
    William nodded as she shut the door behind her, then flicked at the blotting pad on his desk. Bored, he looked around the