Sidney Sheldon’s Angel of the Dark: A gripping thriller full of suspense

For his birthday party, Sir Piers (he’d inherited the baronetcy a month before on his father’s death) hired a private room at the Groucho Club in Soho. A mecca for London’s successful media and literary types, the Groucho was exclusive, but nevertheless managed to maintain a sort of threadbare, scruffy Englishness that Piers had always rather relished. It reminded him of his childhood, of the down-at-heel grandeur of Kingham Hall, the Henley family estate, where Constables and Turners hung on the walls but the heating was never switched on and all the carpets were riddled with moth holes.

Sir Piers Henley approved of the venue, but was depressed by the guest list. His secretary, Janey, had drawn it up as usual. Looking around at the same old faces, captains of industry and finance, accompanied either by their frozen-faced first wives or beautiful but grasping second wives, Piers thought bleakly, When did everybody get so old? So dull? When exactly had he exchanged his real friendships for this? Contacts and business acquaintances.

It was while he was pondering this important question that the waitress poured scalding lobster bisque directly onto his crotch. To the end of his life, Sir Piers Henley would have livid burn marks on the inside of his thighs. Every time he looked at them, he thanked his lucky stars.

The Groucho party had been Tracey Stone’s first day as a waitress, and her last. As Sir Piers Henley screamed and leaped to his feet, Tracey dropped to her knees, unbuckled his belt and pulled off his trousers faster than a whore on commission. Then, without so much as “May I, my lord?” she whipped off his Y-fronts and emptied a jug of ice water over the baronet’s exposed genitalia. The cool water felt marvelous. The fact that he was standing in the middle of the Groucho Club in front of half of London society stark bollock naked felt … even more marvelous. Despite the searing pain in his legs and balls, Sir Piers Henley realized he felt more alive in those few moments than he had in the last fifteen years put together. Here he was, praying for a return of youth, of life, of excitement … and poof, a beautiful girl had dropped into his lap. Or rather, a beautiful girl had dropped lava-hot soup into his lap, but why split hairs? He couldn’t have been more delighted.

Tracey Stone was in her late twenties, with short, spiky red hair, dark brown eyes and a skinny, boyish figure that looked quite preposterously sexy in her black-and-white maid’s get-up. She’s like a human matchstick, thought Piers, sent to light me up.

And light him up Tracey did.

When Tracey agreed to go on a date with Piers, her friends thought she was crazy.

“He’s about a hundred and nine, Trace.”

“And posh.”

“With a cock like a burned cocktail sausage thanks to you.”

“It’s disgusting.”

Piers’s friends were equally scandalized.

“She’s younger than your daughter, old boy.”

“She’s a waitress, Piers. And not even a good one.”

“She’ll rob you blind.”

Neither of them listened. Tracey and Piers knew their friends were wrong. Tracey wasn’t interested in Piers’s money. And Piers couldn’t have cared less if Tracey’s parents were as cockney as Bow Bells. She had switched on a part of him that he had believed long dead. As the burns on his groin slowly began to heal, all he could think about was going to bed with her.

On their first date, Piers took Tracey to dinner at the Ivy. They roared with laughter through three delicious courses, but afterward Tracey hopped into a black cab before Piers could so much as give her a peck on the cheek.

On the second date, they went to the theater. It was a mistake. Tracey was bored. Piers was bored. Another cab was hailed and Piers thought, I’ve lost her.

The next morning at seven a.m., the doorbell rang at Piers’s flat on Cadogan Gardens. It was Tracey. She was carrying a suitcase.

“I need to ask you summink,” she said bluntly. “Are you gay?”

Piers rubbed his eyes blearily. “Am I … ? What? No. I’m not gay. Why on earth would you think I was gay?”

“You like the theater.”

Piers laughed loudly. “That’s it? That’s your evidence?”

“That and the fact you never try to shag me.”

Piers looked at her incredulously. “Never try … ? Good God, woman. You never let me within a mile of you. And by the way, for what it’s worth I don’t like the theater.”

“Why’d you go there, then?”

“I was trying to impress you.”

“It didn’t work.”

“Yes, I noticed. Tracey, my darling, I would like nothing more than to try to ‘shag’ you, as you so poetically put it. But you’ve never given me the chance.”

Pushing past him into the hall, Tracey dropped her suitcase and closed the door behind her. “I’m giving you the chance now.”

The lovemaking was like nothing Piers had ever experienced. Tracey was silken hair and soft flesh and pillowy breasts and wet, warm, delicious depths that craved him like no woman had ever craved him before. When it was over, he proposed to her immediately. Tracey laughed.

“Don’t be such a tosser. I ain’t the marrying kind.”

“Nor am I,” said Piers truthfully.

“Then why’d you ask me? You must stop asking me to do things that you don’t even enjoy yourself. It’s a bad habit.”

“I asked because I want you. And I always get what I want.”

“Ha! Is that a fact? Well not this time, your lordship,” said Tracey defiantly. “I ain’t interested.”

Piers couldn’t have loved her more if she’d been dipped in platinum.

They married six weeks later.

THE FIRST EIGHTEEN MONTHS OF THE Henleys’ marriage were blissfully happy. Piers went about his business as usual, and Tracey never complained about his long hours, or his habit of taking telephone calls in the middle of dinner, the way that other women he’d dated had. Piers had no idea how his wife occupied her time during the days. At first he’d assumed she went shopping, but as the monthly AmEx statements rolled in he saw that Tracey had spent almost nothing, despite having an unlimited platinum card and a generous cash allowance. Once he’d asked her, “What do you do when I’m at the office?”

“I make porn films, Piers,” she replied, deadpan. “That’s Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday’s armed robbery. Thursday’s me day off.”

Piers grinned and thought, I’m the luckiest man on earth. He carried her up to bed.

Tracey was the perfect sexual partner, always eager, always inventive, never demanding on the nights when he was too tired or stressed with work to screw her. The only cloud on the marital horizon was the fact that, according to Tracey, she could not have children.

“Nothing doing in that department, I’m afraid. Me equipment’s broken,” she told him matter-of-factly.

“Well, what part of your equipment?”

“I dunno. All of it, I ’spect. Why? Aren’t you a bit old to be thinking about changing nappies, luv?”

Piers laughed. “I won’t be changing them! Besides, you’re not old. Don’t you want a child of your own?”

Tracey didn’t. But no amount of her repeating this message would make her husband believe her. Over the next year, Piers dragged his young wife to every fertility specialist on Harley Street, subjecting her to round after round of IVF, all to no avail. Determined to “think positive,” he bought a large family house in Belgravia and hired an interior decorator from Paris to design children’s rooms, one for a boy, one for a girl and one in neutral yellow.

“What’s that for? In case I give birth to a rabbit or summink?” Tracey teased him.

She remembered what he’d said to her the night he proposed. “I always get everything I want.” Unfortunately, it seemed that in Mother Nature, Sir Piers Henley had met his match.

“YOUR CHILDREN.” DETECTIVE INSPECTOR WILLARD DREW tore his eyes away from Tracey’s breasts, enticingly encased in a peach lace La Perla bra. For such a slender woman, Lady Henley was remarkably well endowed and she did seem to be having enormous trouble keeping her bathrobe belted. “They’re away for the night?”