Chapter 23: A dish best served naked

As Gemma Sloper came out of the BBC Television Centre building in White City I opened the car door and waved. She saw me, and the car, and surprise and pleasure spread across her face. I had got from my seat and had opened the passenger door for her by the time she reached the car.

"Wow ... a Porsche!" she said, running a gloved finger along the sleek wing before getting in. There was a flash of thigh as she swung herself into the leather upholstered seat. I got in beside her and turned on the ignition, and her too, when the engine growled into life.

"I love the throaty roar of a turbo," she said, moist lips parted in pleasure.

I turned left out of the car park and glided along Wood Street.

"Where are we going for lunch?" She asked as we joined Westway. I gave the pedal a dab, and as the acceleration pinned her against the back of the seat she let out a little shriek of surprise.

"Gerrards Cross," I replied, and swept past a lumbering artic truck.

"Gerrards Cross? I only have an hour for lunch."

I glanced at her with my cheeky chappie grin.

"Ring in to say you've got a headache, and are taking the rest of the day off."

"I hope you don't intend leading me into bad ways, Mister Desmond." I could hear the mirth and the flirtation in her voice.

"That will depend entirely on you, Miss Sloper." I gave a Sid James type leer, and she burst out laughing. Actually it was more like a donkey braying, and I made a mental note not do anything to cause her to laugh like that again.

She took her mobile phone from her handbag and tapped in a number.

"Hi, Sammy, it's Gem. Will you let Adrian know I'm in Gerrards Cross, checking on some addresses for a forthcoming Panorama investigation into Care Homes. Yeah, I won't be back in the office for the rest of the day. Ciao!" She slipped the mobile back into her handbag and winked at me.

"How convenient for you that there's a reason for you to be in Gerrards Cross. When will the Panorama program be broadcast?"

She laughed, thankfully this time more a Muttley snigger then a belly laugh.

"There's always research being done by the Panorama people. As far as I know, there's no program scheduled for care home investigation, but neither Sammy nor Adrian will know that."

Well, that proved Gemma Sloper wasn't the airhead I had assumed from first meeting, when she had appeared to be a typical Sloane Ranger, with her long, unfettered, honey blonde hair, pale blue eyes, a lack of mascara, and lips lightly coloured in a muted tone of lipstick. Today she was dressed neatly in what my now well trained eye assessed as probably a Harrods bought Jaeger knee length black skirt, with a Burberry jacket worn over a shirt type blouse and a Pringle pullover. Her cashmere scarf was worn in the compulsory Sloane Ranger style, looped casually around her neck and over her shoulders. Black kid gloves and black leather, three inch heeled, shoes completed her ensemble. I expect she had a pair of green wellies in a cupboard, and a Barbour jacket hanging on a coat hook, somewhere in the BBC.

She snuggled down in her seat as we moved sedately along the A40 at just below the speed limit. "So where are we eating?"

"The Compleat Angler."

She sat bolt upright. "Wow ... I've been trying to get Harry to take me there for yonks."

"I remember you saying so, when Suzannah and I met you and Harry last week." I didn't continue with what I was thinking... 'a few days before I caught our dining partners shagging each other on my shag pile'... "And I thought to treat you."

She leaned across and kissed my cheek. "How generous of you. What a sweet man you are. Suzannah must adore you for being so considerate."

"Yes, she always is demonstrating how much she cares for me." I managed to hide my sarcasm – but only just.

We continued along the A40 until its junction with the M40, where I sped up to 70 mph; once again the surge of power thrust Gemma back against the head rest.

"Wow ... this is more like it. What's the fastest you've had out of the car?"

"Seventyish ... I rarely break the speed limit."

"What, you always obey the rules?"

"Yes, except when I find it necessary to do otherwise."

She shook her head in mock disbelief. "Here I am, being driven along in a Porsche, just under the speed limit, to a restaurant, which is the most 'now' place to eat, by a man who I barely know – although I do know he is married and obeys the rules."

"Unless I find it necessary to break them," I reminded her, and accelerated to 90 mph to overtake some dawdler in the centre lane.

Her shriek was part surprise and part excitement, as the acceleration sent us zooming past a string of traffic, until I spied a gap which I pulled into, and then slowed down to a steady 69 mph.

'The Compleat Angler' was a late Georgian country house on the outskirts of Gerrards Cross. Zak Walton, a TV celebrity chef, had bought the place twelve months ago and opened up a restaurant, and thanks to a fortuitous TV program on organic foods his restaurant became the place to go to eat and be seen. According to the blurb on the website most of the food cooked and consumed on the premises was locally grown, the majority of it organic. Traditional English cuisine, with first rate ingredients cooked by more than merely competent chefs, and served without the frills and fuss of some of the snootier restaurants in London, where you required an A level in French to understand the menu, appeared to be the secret of Zak Walton's success.

There was none of that la-di-da foreign stuff at 'The Compleat Angler'.

No fancy sauces to disguise the age of the meat or fish. No African petit pois, flown in at enormous cost to the environment and to the indigenous African farmers. The restaurant served only good, honest, English produce — other than the Welsh lamb, Scottish beef and Irish butter — prepared by British chefs, trained in Paris, and served by local maidens — except for the dozens of foreign students in the summer months.

'The Compleat Angler' is located at least ten miles from the River Thames, and I leave it to you to work out why it was so named.

"Have you a reservation, Sir?" The greeter was a pimply faced youth, probably on work experience and the minimum wage. I tucked a £50 banknote into his waistcoat pocket. "I'm afraid we haven't, Archie. Will that be a problem?"

His name tag, 'Archibald', was pinned to the same pocket. No kid should be given such a name — the poor little sod probably still wet his bed from being landed with such a moniker. Archie's wide smile showed he had endured many years of orthodontics.

"Not at all, sir. Please follow me."

He led us into a cosy room, with French windows overlooking a well maintained garden, although very little flora due to it being the beginning of December. We sat in comfortable, high backed chairs, and Gemma gazed around with satisfaction etched on her feline shaped face.

There were another four tables in the room, most with a only pair of diners, but at a table in prominent position to the side of the French windows were seated at least six people. Gemma gave a gasp of excitement.

"There's what's her name, the one who plays the slaggy blonde chav in Corrie, and her footballer boyfriend. They were supposed to have split up. And I'm sure sitting next to her is the slut from Hollyoaks who flashed her boobs at the BAFTA awards last week, with the boy who was third runner up in Big Brother the year before last."

She could have been speaking in tongues for what I understood of her speech, but it appears the six were all 'celebrities' on TV.

Thankfully the food was as good as the blurb of the website.

I went with the trout. Well, with a name like the Compleat Angler you have to take a punt with the fish course, although I doubt my particular fish had been landed by rod and fly that morning from one of the trout rivers of Hampshire, but I will admit it was delicious. Gemma had the shank of lamb, and declared it "Superb, the best shank I've tasted."

l suppressed the retort, 'Wait 'till you sample mine.'

I make no bones about it; I had made up my mind to seduce this girl, and I didn't think it would be too long before she had her knickers off and her legs spread for me. To Gemma Sloper, as for all Sloanies, image was everything.

Her street cred would rise when news of her appearance at 'The Compleat Angler' became known in her circle. She would gain extra kudos by arriving in a Porsche accompanied by a man wearing handmade suits and shoes, who slipped £50 notes to minions as if they were fivers. In comparison, her boyfriend Harry Ledbetter was a married man, who kept a low profile and shunned places favoured by 'celebs' and the paparazzi, fearing his photo in the gossip magazines with a young Sloanie on his arm would not go down too well in the upper reaches of the army, to which Harry aspired.

The man at 'The Compleat Angler' with Gemma would be assumed by her fellow Sloanies to be bonking her — as they refer to fornication. I reckoned it shouldn't take me too long to convince Gemma that Harry was cheating on her, and for me to then act on the Sloanies' assumption, but I wouldn't be bonking Gemma Sloper, I would be fucking her — a grudge fuck, which would not only even the score with Harry Ledbetter, who Gemma was seeing, but also with Suzannah, my wife, who was getting a seeing to from Harry.

We finished our meal. My choice of dessert, which I knew and referred to as 'afters' or 'sweet', was apple crumble and custard. Gemma had the trifle.

"I was tempted by the Spotted Dick but decided against it – too many calories." She said, without any hint of double entendre.

"I would advise you to always avoid a spotted dick." I did my Sid James leer again, and she realised what she had said. Her donkey bray of a laugh had the six celebs' looking over at our table.

I waved to them,"Hi, Damien, loved you on telly last night."

A young, ferret faced, man stood up. "Well, thanks, mate. Always pleased to meet a fan. Shall I send over a signed photo for you and your bird?"

I nodded enthusiastically, and a little later Archie brought over a signed photo of the kid. I had no idea who he was, and had come up with the name, and the TV appearance, on the spur of the moment. Sometimes I reckon I must be psychic.

Over coffee, Gemma started questioning me. "When we first met I had no idea you were a friend of Harry's, although I knew he and Suzannah had known each other from childhood. How did you meet him?"

"We were in the army together. Of course, Harry still is, but I left seven years ago. I consider him to be my closest, dearest, and most trusted friend."

I scanned Gemma's face as I spoke, watching for any sign she knew Harry was shagging Suzannah. Her expression didn't give me any indication she was aware her 'boyfriend' was playing away — but of course as Harry was married he was already playing away with Gemma.

I decided to stir things up and see where it would lead, hopefully with me buried balls deep in her minge in the not too distant future.

"I've known Harry for over twenty years. I was at his wedding, and I'm godfather to his youngest." One truth from three statements isn't too bad – much better than many politicians' average.

"I know he's married," she said, a trifle angrily I thought, but her terseness could have been due to guilt. "But he told me the marriage is an arranged one, not a love match. His wife's father is a general or something, and Harry married her to get promoted by taking the girl off her father's hands."

She looked down at her cup of coffee. "I know he is very fond of his children. The only reason he hasn't yet divorced his wife is because he's waiting until they are old enough to understand." She looked up at me. "Is his wife very pretty? Harry says she has many boyfriends, which is why he started finding comfort with other women."

I nearly burst out laughing. Harry Ledbetter was an out and out philanderer, and had been long before I knew him. The very thought he had been forced to find solace with other females because his wife had cheated on him was so ludicrous as to be surreal.

"His wife Eleanor is attractive enough, although it's some time since I last saw her and she might have deteriorated. I don't know what their domestic arrangements are, but he does spend time in Devon, probably only to see the kids," I said.

"Yes, Harry says he has to go there this year to play Father Christmas for his children." She pouted. "I'm going to have to stay in some grotty room at a Holiday Inn. The nearest one to the village where Harry's wife lives is on the M5. He says he will slip out of the house whenever he is able, but it's not going to be much of a Christmas for me."

A light bulb went on in my head at her mention of Christmas. And a plan to gain further revenge on both Harry and Suzannah crystalized.

To celebrate Suzannah's and my forthcoming fifth wedding anniversary I had secretly booked a holiday in the Seychelles, where we had spent our honeymoon. That plan had now been knocked on the head by her adultery, but I hadn't yet got around to cancelling the trip, and losing the large deposit.

It was now the 7th of December and I was due to fly out on the 22nd of the month for fourteen days in the Lotto Luxury Hotel complex on Praslin Island. Instead of cancelling I decided to take Gemma in lieu of Suzannah. By then I would have convinced her Harry Ledbetter was having an affair, but not with my wife, which would show me up as a cuckold and a wimp. Fortunately I had already chosen another candidate as Harry's paramour.

"Of course Eleanor got Harry on the rebound," I said, as I poured myself a cup of coffee. "The love of his life had just turned down his proposal of marriage. He was heartbroken." I stirred my coffee as smoothly as I stirred the shit for Harry.

"He was jilted? Who by?"

"A girl by the name of Melissa Brookes. Harry and I were in the same unit as her in Colchester. He fell, big time."

"Of course ... Mel." Gemma's face flared with anger. "About a month ago Harry and I were bonking in his flat when he shouted out 'Mel', as he ... err ... came. I asked him who 'Mel' was and he made out he had said 'hell', having reached such a shattering climax." Her face fell. "I believed the lying sod at the time but now I realise all the time he was bonking me he was thinking of her. Where is she now?"

Harry calling out Mel's name was a bonus, and a fillip to my plan — the poor bugger must still be in love with her.

"The last I heard she was at GCHQ," I said, "although I knew she also visits MoD frequently, and in fact might be transferred there on a permanent basis by now. She is an electronics expert, and MoD are in negotiation with MilSys, the company I work for, for new equipment." All lies of course as Mel was a linguist, and the last I heard she was seconded to the British Embassy in Istanbul.

Gemma regarded me with a puzzled expression on her face "What's GCHQ?"

It appeared Gemma was a typical Sloanie after all. The world and his wife must have heard of the Government Communications Headquarters.

"It's a communication centre, in Cheltenham," I said.

"Harry is always back and forth to Cheltenham; I believe he's there now. He said last week he would be away for a few days."

Harry was more likely to be in Suzannah at her Canary Wharf apartment than at GCHQ, although he did make frequent visits to the place, as it was where most of the intercepts from the Middle East were deciphered.

"I can check on where Harry has been for the last few months, if you would like me to. I have a lists of the dates, and places, of his visits. My company and MoD are working together on several projects, and Harry is our point of contact."

"I bet he's got his point of contact into that Melissa bitch," Gemma said; a snarl more than a statement.

"Of course, Suzannah attends many of the same meetings as Harry. I could ask her if Mel and Harry are getting ... closer ... at these venues."

"That would be helpful, Des, thanks." She thought for a second. "What does this Mel woman look like?"

"She is a very attractive, with long dark hair, a voluptuous figure..."

"I bloody well knew it! Harry has been onto me for months to get a boob job. He makes fun of me, and says, 'very flat, Norfolk'." She noted my bemusement. "It's a quote from a Noel Coward play. I'm from Norwich and..." she pointed to her chest which showed only a slight swell of bosom, not the sort of bulging tits Mel has, and which Harry loved.

"Personally... ," I said, partly to lift her spirit, partly to assist me into her knickers and partly the truth, "I've always thought more than one handful is surplus to requirements." I leered at her chest." It looks as if your tit would fit quite snugly in my hand. We could test my hypothesis later on if you like?"

She giggled and blushed at the same time. "You certainly know how to build up a girl's self-confidence, Des. Thank you for that, and who knows where your hands... " She stopped in confusion. "But you are a happily married man. What would your wife say if she found out you'd had your hands around my boobs?"

"Suzannah and I do not own each other's bodies. What we do, and who we do it with, remains our own business. Although it would take a very special girl to have me stray from Suzannah."

"You would allow other men bonk Suzannah, and wouldn't mind?"

"As I said, I don't own her, and it would be her doing the fu ... bonking. And I have carte blanch to bonk other girls if I feel the need. At the moment neither of us feels the urge to sample pastures new, but after several more years of marriage, who knows?" The calm and glib way I came out with these mendacious statements showed I could have had a promising career in politics, or as a used car salesman.

"What about your marriage vows?"

"What an old fashioned concept, Gemma. I'm surprised a young woman like you should still ascribe to such an outmoded custom."

I was recycling Suki's comments to me when I caught her in flagrante, although not believing a word of it myself.

Gemma stared thoughtfully at me for a moment. "I did have a slight suspicion Harry and Suzannah might be having..."

I stopped her. "Harry Ledbetter is my best friend, and a former brother in arms. I'll admit he would jump on a frog if it stopped hopping for long enough, but to him fellow squaddies' wives or partners are off limits. In the army you depend on your mates to watch your back in action. You rely on them, and trust them with your life. How would it be if a bloke was known to have bonked your wife or partner? He would be mistrusted, and probably would catch a bullet from the betrayed mate when enemy bullets were flying. No, put your mind at rest as far as Harry and Suzannah are concerned. Harry's sense of honour would never allow him to have an affair with the wife of a comrade."

See what I mean about my skill at prevarication?

"But you're not in the army now, Des. You're no longer Harry's comrade in arms."

"Doesn't matter, Gem. Once you've been in, you never really leave the army. The code still applies even when you are in Civvy Street."

I can hear your questions: Why go through all this farrago of lies?

Just tell the girl Harry Ledbetter has been shagging your wife. Then she will fall into your arms, and bed, and the two of you can fuck each other stupid and get your own back on your traitorous partners.