(2012) Evie Undercover (38 page)

As the whisky hit the back of his throat, he leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes for a few minutes. Then he poured another shot of whisky, took the magazine out of his jacket pocket, opened it and started to read slowly through the article.

When he’d read every single word of the report for a second time, he sat back and stared ahead of him. In his mind’s eye, he and Evie were lying in bed, laughing and chatting together.
He
saw himself
telling
her about his friendship with Zizi and about
breaching the Bar Code when he was very young.
Some time after that, she
must have
told someone
what he’d said
.

He
pushed back a rising sense of hurt and betrayal as he
pictured Evie passing on to another person the words he’d spoken to her in a moment of intimacy. He
glanced
again
at the magazine.

So this was what Evie had been talking about when she’d said in her note to him that she didn’t do it
,
also when she’d told Jess that somebody had done the dirty on her.
On the phone,
Gabriela said that Evie had told her
that
she’d done something she very much regretted doing, and that he would hate her for doing it. It was a sl
ightly different take on things,
and Gabriela may have misunderstood
what Evie was saying,
but whatever
she
said or didn’t say, it was clear that she hadn’t expected him to believe that she was innocent, and she hadn’t expected Jess and Rachel to believe her either.

He picked up the note she’d left him and
re
read it
,
then he looked down at the exposé in
Pure Dirt
. It was all one huge mess. One thing, however, stood out way above everything else
–
was heads and shoulders above everything else – and that was his absolute conviction that Evie didn’t write that article.

Even at the very
moment that he’d seen her name beneath the article, he’d known that
she
would never have written such a story.
S
omeone had written about him and Zizi
in a way that suggested a sexual relationship, and along with a photo they’d managed to find of the two
of
them, plus a sensationalised account of him reading legal material he shouldn’t have done, they’d made him look morally reprehensible as well as
in breach of the Bar Code.

But that someone wasn’t Evie.

At that moment, in a blinding flash of self-realisation that almost knocked him over with its force, he’d known that he loved
her
with every inch
of his being, and that she loved him just as strongly. It had taken t
hat filthy rag to make him see a
truth that had been staring him in the face since that first day in Umbria.

Of course Evie
didn’
t write that report. People who loved each other didn’t
act
like that; they couldn’t.

He pushed his drink to one side, threw the magazine across his study and stood up.

Panting slightly from the speed with which he’d rushed from his car, he knocked on
the doo
r
to Evie’s
house, stepped back and waited. Footsteps could
be heard coming to the
door, and a moment later,
it
opened a crack.

‘Since you’re not Jess, and you’re certainly not Evie, you must be Rachel,’ he told the girl with long, brown hair who stood peering through the narrow opening.
The door closed slightly. He
heard th
e sound of a chain being undone,
then the door opened wider again.

‘And since you’re obviously not here to sell us double glazing or to save our souls, you must be Tom,’ the girl said cheerfully. ‘And yes, I’m Rachel. Come on in. Jess
warned that
you might call or even come round.’

‘Well, as you can see, I picked the
“
or even come round
”
option.’ He gave her a slight smile and went into the house. ‘It’s good to meet you, Rachel, although I’d have preferred to do so under different circumstances.’

‘Likewise,’ she called over her shoulder as she went ahead of him into the sitting room.

Jess was on the sofa, reading a magazine. She looked up as Tom came into the sitting room and hastily made a move to stuff the magazine under a cushion.

‘Don’t bother, Jess. I’ve
already
seen it,’ he said, and he sat down in the armchair. Rachel went and sat on the sofa next to Jess.

Jess leaned forward, an expression of sympathy on her face. ‘I’m so sorry about the article, Tom.’

‘Why, Jess? Did you write it?’

‘Of course not,’ she retorted indignantly.

‘Then you’ve nothing to be sorry about, have you? What about you, Rachel? Did you write the article?’

‘No, I most certainly did not. The first time I heard about your naughty past was when I read the
story over someone’s shoulder on
the tube this morning.’

‘So I’ve forestalled any more apologies from anyone here, I hope. And that goes for Evie, too, should she suddenly appear.’

Rachel and Jess exchanged glances.
‘I don’t follow,’ Jess said.

‘Be honest. In your heart of hearts, do either of you think that Evie could ever have sent that story to
Pure Dirt
?’

‘Of course, we don’t
. S
he wouldn’t do such a thing,’ Rachel said at once. ‘But as you’ve probably guessed by now,
Pure Dirt
did send Evie to work for you
–
the editor thought you’d been at it with a client and he wanted to see you struck off as payback for all the money you’ve cost them in the past. He hates you.’

‘
Then they’ll be out of luck.
It’s not
an offence fo
r which I
could
be struck off – a barrister’s self employed and can rather do what he likes. But
any suggestion that he’s having a relationship with a client
obviously looks bad if
that
client’s claiming that
s
he’s morally blameless and has been defamed.
They’ll be trying
to claw back some of the money that the original case cost them.’
He paused. ‘
And Evie’s role in a
l
l this?
’

‘She’
d only just started working
for
Pure Dirt
when she was given the
task
of
digging up some dirt on
you,’ Jess
said
. ‘
She was desperate to work for a magazine and that was all she could get. And s
he’d still got an idealised view of the job
and thought
she
could do it without being nasty
.
Rachel and I really went on at her for not thinking it through, but happily she soon came to her senses.
She was going to quit the job last Friday and tell you the truth that evening.
’

So, h
e’d been nothing but an assignment in the beginning. It hurt, but it didn’t change things. He knew Evie,
and he
knew their connection was real.

‘
W
here does the agency come in?’

‘Nowhere really,’ Rachel said. ‘Her editor’s got a contact at the agency, and he told the editor that you wanted an Italian speaker. The contact was paid to recommend Evie for the job. The rest is history, as they say.’

‘
I think I get the picture now.
You can be sure that I’ll sort out the agency in the fullness of time, but for the moment,
my
focus
is
finding Evie.’

‘
What I don’t get, Tom,’ Rachel said, ‘is why
you’re so
certain
that Evie didn’t write the story. Jess and I know
her
really well, and we know that she could never do anything malicious to anyone
–
s
he’s just not wired like that. B
ut how can you be so sure that she wasn’t involved, assuming
that
you told her everything
that was
in the article? They had to get it from somewhere.’

‘I’ve known her for long enough
to know she couldn’t do that
. You don’t necessarily have to be with someone for years to know them
. A
day can be sufficient. And as for what you indirectly asked,
reading
a
fax that I shouldn’t have read was true, and
that I’m friends
with Zizi is true, but
our friendship is
platonic and
has never been anything else, which Evie knows
.
That part of
the article is a lie
, and the whole thing has been
made to sound
ultra
sensational.’

‘You
don’t have to explain to us
,’ Jess cut in quickly. ‘It’s your business.’

‘Not any longer, unfortunately. There’s only one glaring omiss
ion in the article, and that’s to do with
the
material faxed to me by mistake
.
Evie knows that I was very young at the time and that it was my first solo case, but they left out
any reference to my youth and inexperience
.
I guess it
would have made everything sound
much
less serious
–
after all, a young barrister making a mistake doesn’t sound as bad as an experienced barrister doing what he knows to be wrong.’

‘They’
re such pigs at
Pure Dirt
,’ Rachel said indignantly.

‘Anyway, to move on – we’re all agreed that Evie didn’t write that story, aren’t we?’ he said.

Jess sighed. ‘I wish she’d been here to hear you say that. I bet it would have stopped her from running away like she’s done.’

‘I wish she was here, too.’ He looked from one to the other. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve had any more thoughts about where she might have gone, have you?’

Jess gestured helplessly with her hands. ‘We haven’t a clue. Believe me, we’d tell you if we had, but we’ve absolutely no idea at all. She’s not even responding to my text messages.’

‘Do you have any idea who dropped you in the shit, Tom?’ Rachel asked. ‘It’s definitely not Evie,
so
it must be someone
else
.’

‘Funnily enough, I’m less bothered about that than I am about finding Evie. But yes, I do have a pretty good idea who it must have been.’

‘So
,
who do you think it was, then? Jess and I were talking about it just before you got here. We can only think of one person.’

‘I don’t like to accuse anyone without being sure
,
but I, too, can think of only one other person it could realistically be. It’s probably the same person that you’ve come up with.’

‘Accuse away,’ Rachel said with a giggle. ‘You’re among friends. We think it must have been Gabriela – she and Evie have spent a lot of time together since Gabriela came to London. Too much, if you ask me
–
Gabriela was all over Evie like a rash.’

‘But we can’t see why she would do something that would hurt you,’ Jess cut in. ‘From what Evie said, Gabriela really like
s
you. In fact, when you first met Gabriela,
Evie
was a bit jealous about how well you two seemed to hit it off. So why
wo
uld Gabriela do that
?’

Tom shrugged his s
houlders. ‘It’s hard to explain, I know,
but it must have been her. When I spoke to her just after Evie
had
disappeared, she emphasised that Evie had told her
that
she’d done something she regretted doing. That’s significantly different from the messages the three of us got. There’s no reason why
Evie
would have said two such different things.’

‘No, there isn’t,’ Rachel agreed.

‘As for why Gabriela did it,’ Tom went on, ‘I can only guess that she must have been
very
against Evie for some reason known only to herself
, and
she
didn’t want to see her happy. S
he must have thought that by breaking us up, she’d make her unhappy. She may well have
overlooked the fact
that she’d be hurting me in the process.’