Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [99]
When they were first married he was deliriously happy. He remembered coming across the word ‘uxorious’ in the dictionary and being astounded to read the definition – it meant ‘excessively fond of one’s wife’. How was it possible to be excessively fond of your wife?
But things change. Lately he’d simply come to hate the bitch.
He hated the way she took the ethical and intellectual high ground in all their arguments, using her psychiatric jargon to label him. She called him ‘anal retentive’. She called him ‘passive‐aggressive’. And she sounded so snotty, so superior. He wanted to shut her up good and proper. After all, if it wasn’t for his encouragement and his financial support, she never would have got her training as a psychotherapist in the first place. She never would have thought of applying to join the IDEA training program. And she certainly wouldn’t have been accepted as a solo applicant. They only wanted her as part of a couple, a stable combination. It was Raymond’s weaponry skills that clinched the deal. Chrissie had ridden to success on his back.
But when they were together Raymond still behaved the way he always had. Patient, attentive, unfailingly protective of her.
Even when the two of them were alone together he still treated her just the same. Kind. Reassuring. Patient. But inside he felt the rage gathering like lava, waiting to explode if it could ever find a vent.
He’d simply begun to loathe her. The way she snorted when she laughed, like some little pig digging for truffles. The way she thought she was always right. The way she held her teacup.
Raymond still smiled and hugged and reassured her, but all the while he seethed inside. If she’d looked into his eyes at the wrong moment she would have seen pure hatred beating there, barely restrained. Waiting to be unleashed.
‘Uxorious’ was definitely the wrong word for Raymond now.
After all, she’d used him. Used him to get where she was today. That was her great skill, using people. Just like she’d used her father. Until she killed him.
Chrissie had shot her father dead on her birthday. The police found her hiding in the attic, wrapped in the wedding dress of her mother who’d died in childbirth, fifteen years ago to the day. The wedding dress was smeared with blood and she was still clutching the murder weapon. Except the local DA decided it wasn’t murder after all. Chrissie won a self‐defence plea and made a pretty good living on the talk show circuit for a year or so, describing the horror show of her childhood. Another victim of child abuse.
But IDEA wasn’t a bunch of hick cops. They had discovered the truth. And the old Texan had told Raymond what really happened. The father had been innocent. She’d gunned him down in cold blood. By that time Raymond didn’t have any trouble believing it. He knew how Chrissie liked to spin a story. She always wanted to be the centre of attention and she usually managed it. Attracting sympathy and dodging blame were her special talents.
So Raymond lay awake at night beside his wife, the murderer. Then each morning he smiled at her and kissed her and brought her the ritual cup of fragrant strawberry tea in bed. All the while hating the slut. Wondering what he could do and hating her for her superior manner and psychiatric jargon. If anybody needed a shrink it was her. How could he ever have fallen for that injured animal act of hers?
But Raymond swallowed and concealed his rage. He avoided confrontation and nurtured his poisons, fantasizing about revenge. Someday he would get even. Someday he would let it all out.
Here, in the shadow of Canterbury cathedral, that day had arrived.
As soon as the guy touched him it began to happen. Raymond had shot him with an anaesthetic dart and then bent over to cuff him. But despite the dart the guy was still semi‐conscious, and he managed to grab Raymond by the wrist.
It was as if Raymond had made contact with a high‐voltage power cable. Raymond felt the force ripping through him like