The Modigliani Scandal - Ken Follett [39]
A cab came up behind him and flashed by, empty. Julian whistled and waved but it did not stop. He resolved to be more alert.
It struck him that Sarah might ring the police while he was away. Then the cat would be out of the bag. He would have to give her the name of a nonexistent police station. A taxi came toward him, and he hailed it.
He stretched out his legs in the back of the cab, and wriggled his toes inside his shoes to ease the soreness from walking. All right, suppose Sarah rang Scotland Yard when she discovered the station did not exist. They would tell her, eventually, that her car had not been reported stolen at all.
The whole scheme appeared more and more foolhardy as he approached home. Sarah might accuse him of stealing her car. Could you be charged with stealing from your wife? What about all that stuff in the marriage service—all my worldly goods I thee endow, or something? And there was a charge of wasting police time.
The taxi went along Victoria Embankment and through Westminster. The police would not bother to prosecute in a marital quarrel, Julian decided. But enough harm would be done if Sarah realized what he was up to. As soon as she did, she would tell her father. Then Julian would be out of favor with Lord Cardwell at the crucial moment when he might need money to buy the Modigliani.
He began to wish he had never thought of selling the car. What had seemed a brainwave early that morning now looked like wrecking his chances of a find.
The taxi stopped outside the glass-walled house, and Julian paid the cabbie with one of the thick pile of fivers he had got from the garage man. As he walked up to the front door he tried desperately to think of a better yarn to tell his wife. Nothing came.
He let himself quietly into the house. It was only just after eleven o′clock—she would still be in bed. He made no noise as he entered the living room and sat down. He eased off his shoes and sat back.
It might be better to go straight to Italy, now. He could leave a note saying he would be away for a few days. She would assume he had taken the car. When he came back he could spin her some tale.
Suddenly he frowned. Since he came in a small noise had been tugging at the sleeve of his mind, demanding attention. He concentrated on it now, and his frown deepened. It was a kind of scuffling noise.
He sorted it into its components. There was a rustle of sheets, a muffled creak of bedsprings, and a panting. It was coming from the bedroom. He guessed Sarah was having a nightmare. He was about to call out to wake her; then he remembered something about not waking people suddenly when they were dreaming. Or was that sleepwalking? He decided to look at her.
He walked up the half-flight of stairs. The bedroom door was open. He looked in.
He stopped dead in his tracks, and his mouth fell open in surprise. His heart beat very fast in shock, and he could hear a rushing noise in his ears.
Sarah lay on her side on the sheets. Her neck was arched, her head flung back, and her expensively coiffed hair plastered to her perspiring face. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open, emitting low-pitched animal grunts.
A man lay beside her, his pelvis locked with hers in a slow shudder. The man′s thick limbs were dense with black hair. The muscles of his white buttocks bunched and relaxed rhythmically. Sarah had one foot on the knee of the opposite leg, making a triangle; and the man squeezed the flesh of the inside of her raised thigh as he murmured obscenities in a deep, clear voice.
On the bed behind Sarah lay a second man. He had blond hair, and his white face was slightly spotty. His hips and Sarah′s bottom fitted together like spoons in a drawer. One hand curled around Sarah′s body and squeezed her breasts, one after the other.
It dawned on Julian that the two men were making love to her