There wasn’t a day in the last eighteen months when Mr Appleton hadn’t rued divorcing the first Mrs Appleton in order to marry the second Mrs Appleton, who rejoiced in the first name of Paige. Mr Appleton was a career diplomat and had met his second wife in the offices of the British Embassy in Rome when he was the ambassador and she had been a part-time, low-level temp. Mr Appleton was fifty-six when he made the acquaintance of the second Mrs Appleton, who was twenty-five.
Mr Appleton was born in Woodstock, a small town located next to Blenheim Palace, the country residence of the Duke of Marlborough, and privileged to be one of the cohort of distant relatives of the first duke of the tribe – the famous “Marlborough’s gone to war” – and the illustrious Winston Churchill. He had been a contemporary of Violet, the first Mrs Appleton, at Oxford where they were both students, and had married her shortly before taking up what was to be his first diplomatic posting abroad and packing their cases to go to Kampala.
Mr Appleton had come to the embassy in Rome thirty years after beginning that life as a vagabond bureaucrat in the capital of Uganda, heralded by a vaunted series of successes and a marriage that had lasted thirty years and given him two children. Little did Mr Appleton imagine his life would be turned upside down in the Italian capital, that he’d divorce and remarry, let alone that he’d soon be regretting replacing the competent, discreet first Mrs Appleton with the young, scatty Paige.
As he was a man of austere character and rigid persuasions, Mr Appleton disapproved of extramarital entanglements, which he criticized in private. Nevertheless, the arrival on the scene in Rome of the second Mrs Appleton caught him at a moment in his life when the past seemed to stretch out like a piece of chewing gum and the future was shortening like the days of winter, and he decided to make an exception. He liked the exception so much that what was meant simply as a weekend fling – a weekend when the first Mrs Appleton was visiting their children in London – finally turned into a torrid affair that would lead him back to the altar.
The second Mrs Appleton liked to tell people it had been love at first sight, and though he wasn’t so happy to recall the memory – the moment the spark ignited, he had still been married to the first Mrs Appleton, and their audience would compare dates – the fact was that Mr Appleton had suffered a coup de foudre in the Italian capital and had been knocked for six.
The lack of an attractive physique wasn’t among the second Mrs Appleton’s defects, and that was a decisive factor in triggering their affair. The second Mrs Appleton was a freckled Englishwoman with wild, blonde hair, a green-eyed lioness with a come-on smile and moist lips and the necessary curves and bra size to make headway in life without needing to nurture any other talents. Mr Appleton’s sex life, it has to be said, had never been characterized by fireworks, but the first Mrs Appleton’s encounter with the menopause had reduced it to the category of a damp squib he was hard pressed to ignite half a dozen times a year. Unlike Violet, the second Mrs Appleton possessed all the splendour of the best pyrotechnics on New Year’s Eve, and the diplomat was so dazzled by her exhibition of rockets, bangers, Bengal candles, crackers, yellow rain and multicoloured fountains that, when the first Mrs Appleton returned from London, he quickly gave her a new credit card and sent her to holiday by herself in New York.
For a couple of weeks while the first Mrs Appleton went to concerts and emptied the shops in Manhattan, Mr Appleton and the second Mrs Appleton had a ball filling embassy annexes and Rome’s hotels with a fug of pheromones. However, the second Mrs Appleton, unwilling to play a secondary role in that ménage à trois, wasn’t slow in confronting Mr Appleton with the dilemma of whether to transform the first Mrs Appleton into an ex-Mrs Appleton or to return to a diet of damp squibs. Overwhelmed by a second rush of adolescence to his groin that only lacked a spate of acne, Mr Appleton didn’t think twice: he asked Violet for a divorce and regaled the future second Mrs Appleton with a diamond and emerald ring to put a seal on their betrothal.
Shortly after marrying the second Mrs Appleton in a discreet ceremony in Rome, Mr Appleton was appointed ambassador to Washington and the couple began experiencing problems. The second Mrs Appleton had always looked forward to living in the United States, but her enthusiasm soon waned when she discovered that Washington wasn’t as entertaining as Rome and Americans weren’t as dishy as Italians. Unlike the first Mrs Appleton, the second Mrs Appleton wasn’t used to the slavish restrictions of protocol and soon tired of performing like a dummy at banquets and interminable receptions. Her ignorance of any area of knowledge that wasn’t covered by the glossies made her stick out like a sore thumb, and forced her to remain silent most of the time: she was bored stiff. Tedium led her to chase the waiters and seek refuge in champagne, and champagne liberated her tongue and encouraged her to say the first thing that entered her head.
The first Mrs Appleton had set very high standards, and Mr Appleton began to make comparisons. The first Mrs Appleton had a degree in French literature, was the cousin twice removed of the queen’s second cousin and had completely mastered the art of etiquette. In the case of the second Mrs Appleton, she had a degree in interior design from Buckinghamshire New University – a university that at the time enjoyed the dubious honour of hovering near the bottom of the British universities league table – and lacked the pedigree that equips one’s DNA with the ability to match flowers, tablecloths and cutlery. And, above all, she was unable to keep her mouth shut. If the first Mrs Appleton knew when to be quiet without Mr Appleton having to give her a wink or kick her under the table, the second Mrs Appleton was an expert at putting her foot in it at the most inglorious of moments.
Mr Appleton soon had to spend more time keeping an eye on his wife than on international politics. However, that didn’t curtail the second Mrs Appleton’s indiscretions or prevent the provocative dresses she wore – she’d begun to shorten the length of her skirts and lower her necklines dangerously – from becoming a matter of gossip in Washington, and the jokes about the ambassador’s ever-so-young wife’s lack of know-how soon crossed the pond and came to the attention of Downing Street. Realizing the risks his brand-new wife’s inexperience was exposing him to, Mr Appleton began to long for the professional savoir-faire of his first wife and to regret divorcing her.
Rock bottom was reached when they’d been in Washington for six months and the minister in charge asked him to organize a banquet to conclude a summit. Mr Appleton saw this as a test of his ability to represent Great Britain in the United States, and was conscious of what was at stake. He decided to take the bull by the horns and leave the second Mrs Appleton at the periphery of all the preparations.
With the subtlety that was the stock-in-trade of the profession he had chosen, Mr Appleton asked the second Mrs Appleton to offer her apologies on the day of the gala on the excuse that she had flu, and she readily agreed. However, she soon regretted acquiescing so meekly to her husband’s peculiar request, and on the day of the dinner she had second thoughts and asked the waiters to add another place to the top table. What sense did it make, she told herself, for Mr Appleton to have such a young, pretty, amusing wife and keep her under wraps?
While he was waiting for his guests to arrive at the embassy, Mr Appleton had to suppress a panic attack when he saw his wife slink into the reception room, where the aperitifs were being served, in a figure-hugging black satin dress that left little to the imagination. Intimidated by the sight of so many heads of state and stuck-up first ladies, the second Mrs Appleton managed to remain reasonably sober until the desserts, when the appearance of bottles of bubbly meant the lack of inhibition she had begun to feel with the cocktails transformed into out-and-out euphoria and she felt the need to share her extravagant excesses with all the other guests.
The less than appropriate comments made by the second Mrs Appleton on delicate issues of international politics led to Mr Appleton’s immediate dismissal the morning after and he was forced to return to London, where he had to choose between a small, windowless office in a Whitehall basement or early retirement. However, Mr Appleton still had friends in the British capital, and after knocking on lots of doors and recalling old favours, he managed a posting to Barcelona as a replacement for the outgoing consul. Everybody knew that to move from ambassador to consul was to plummet down the diplomatic ladder, but Mr Appleton explained it away by saying it was a personal favour he was doing the Prime Minister, who required someone she could trust in the Catalan capital to keep her informed about the manoeuvres of the independence-bound government and the strategies of the opposition.
The second Mrs Appleton was delighted by the idea of going to Barcelona. She’d never been there, but she had seen Woody Allen’s film and been bowled over by the colourful portrait the film-maker had painted of the city. The prospect of hobnobbing with toreros and bohemian artists and spending the day on the beach quaffing sangria translated into a temporary resurgence of her amatory habits that had recently gone into hibernation. Infected by his wife’s youthful ardour, Mr Appleton decided to give their marriage a second chance, trusting that Paige had learned her lesson.
Nonetheless, what promised to be a second honeymoon on the Med was short-lived. From the moment she arrived in Barcelona, the second Mrs Appleton busied herself redecorating the house they’d rented in Sarrià and shopping on the Passeig de Gràcia. She didn’t bother to read the memorandum they’d sent her from London and, inadvertently, during the ceremony to accredit the new consul at the Palau de la Generalitat, she put her foot in it yet again. She wondered out loud why the hell the Catalans had to speak Catalan if they could already speak Spanish, which didn’t go down at all well, and a shamefaced Mr Appleton had to humiliate himself and offer all manner of apologies to avoid the autonomous government’s protests reaching the formal complaint stage and the Foreign Office in London. In the end, there was no such fallout, but Mr Appleton saw that the thread supporting the sword of Damocles hanging over his career was fraying by the second.
The second Mrs Appleton was one big disappointment. And not simply because her lack of brainpower had destroyed his ambition to retire from his career in the most important embassy on the planet, but also because the antidepressants and tranquillizers she’d started taking in order to survive the boredom of diplomatic life had transformed the revitalized fireworks of their sex life into a low-budget backstreet fling. Aware that that jamboree, like his career, was in implacable decline, he started to weigh up the idea of divorcing the second Mrs Appleton and trying to get back together with his ex.
However, Mr Appleton soon discovered that disentangling himself from the second Mrs Appleton was going to be far from easy. His present consort wasn’t as docile as his first had been, and, when he insinuated that perhaps the moment had come to end a relationship that was foundering rather than developing, the second Mrs Appleton reacted by rejecting the option of divorce and threatening to mount a scandal of epic proportions with a kiss-and-tell interview in the Sun if he sent a lawyer her way.
That was the day Mr Appleton sidelined the divorce option and seriously began to contemplate the possibility of becoming a widower.
With the meticulous attention to detail that had been a feature of his life, Mr Appleton began to assess the various alternatives on offer if he were to rid himself of the second Mrs Appleton via the convenient method of dispatching her to the other side. He felt that suicide was the least risky option, and, making the most of a note in his possession that could be read as a goodbye message, he wasted no time in activating the plan that had occurred to him.
In no uncertain terms, Mr Appleton had forbidden the second Mrs Appleton from sending photos or messages by phone (he was afraid she’d hit the wrong button and send her documents to the wrong person’s inbox), and as a result she had become accustomed to leaving him short notes on the pillow or bedside table when she felt a need to apologize after she’d embarrassed him. Mr Appleton quickly read these notes and threw them in the wastepaper bin (her spelling mistakes really grated on him), but, luckily, he had kept one she had written to him in Washington immediately after the reception where she had ruined his career. The handwritten note said “I’m so sorry, love” and was signed off with her first name. The only drawback was that, below her signature, the second Mrs Appleton had drawn an erect penis and two hairy testicles, which she had enhanced with a sensual kiss from her red lips. It didn’t look like your average suicide note, but as everyone in Barcelona was becoming familiar with the second Mrs Appleton’s wayward character and aversion to formalities, Mr Appleton thought it would pass muster and decided to go for it.
Mr Appleton chose a Saturday early in September when their maid was on holiday to terminate his wife’s life. It was the day he had offered to accompany a member of the English Parliament to see a performance of The Twilight of the Gods at the Liceu opera house. The second Mrs Appleton hated opera, and, knowing his wife’s tastes, Mr Appleton assumed she would refuse to swallow four and a half hours of Wagner just for the sake of appearances.
“Don’t you worry, it’s only a Labour MP. No need for you to suffer,” Mr Appleton told her, laughing it off.
The performance began at seven. At about four, when the second Mrs Appleton was curled up on the sofa zapping through the channels, Mr Appleton took a bottle of cava from the fridge, opened it and slipped in a handful of tranquillizers he had previously rendered into powder with the help of a spoon. Then he walked into their dining room and, like a real gentleman, offered his wife a glass of cava knowing she wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of a drop of bubbly. Moved by his gesture, the second Mrs Appleton thanked him for thinking of her and went on to knock back the whole bottle.
She immediately fell asleep. Mr Appleton helped her to their bedroom on the second floor of their house, but rather than leaving her on top of the bed, he dragged her into the en suite bathroom, stripped her and lifted her into the bath. While the bath was filling up with hot water, Mr Appleton fetched a knife from the kitchen, returned to the bathroom and slit her wrists.
When the second Mrs Appleton was knocking on the gates of St Peter, Mr Appleton grabbed the bottle of cava, the glass and the note he was intending to use as a suicide missive, and took the lot into the bathroom. He slowly removed his fingerprints from places where they shouldn’t be, checked that everything was in order and finally changed his clothes, combed his hair, sprayed scent over himself and went to the garage to get his car.
It was hot and muggy outside. As Mr Appleton drove out of his garage, he didn’t notice the two men following close behind in a grey Ford Focus that had been parked outside his house for a couple of days. He had agreed to meet the Labour MP at 6.30 in the foyer of the Liceu and didn’t want to arrive late, but the glass of cava (from a different bottle) that he had been obliged to drink in order not to arouse suspicion was making him feel queasy and headachy. As the opera they were about to see was on the long side, he decided to stop at a pharmacy to buy anti-acid tablets and painkillers. He found one open on the Carrer Escoles Pies, double-parked his car and went inside.
The only people in the shop were an adolescent girl rummaging on a shelf and the chemist. Mr Appleton strode towards the counter, not noticing the two men come in who had followed him from his house and into the pharmacy. The second he heard male voices speaking threateningly in a language that sounded like Chinese and saw the expression of panic on the shop assistant’s face, he swivelled around and found himself facing two Oriental-looking men and one pistol aimed at himself.
Two shots rang out.
Mr Appleton fell to the floor, mortally wounded. And while his life ebbed away, he remembered the fragment of a conversation he had overheard in the course of one of those acts of protocol he’d had to attend, and how the now deceased second Mrs Appleton’s ears had pricked up when a jaded inspector of the mossos d’esquadra had mentioned the new fashion for contracting Chinese hitmen through the pages of The Times.