A Room Swept White (44 page)

‘Me too.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. And I’m not rich, apart from this house. I inherited it last year from my grandfather. I run a window-cleaning business. This isn’t where I live – I’m still in my rented flat in Streatham. This place is way too big for me, and the décor’s too . . . womanly. My gran was an interior designer.’

‘Just you?’ I say. ‘You inherited this whole house?’

‘All six of the grandchildren inherited a property,’ he says, looking sheepish. ‘My grandfather was very wealthy. Something to do with diamonds.’

‘Oh, right,’ I say. ‘I’m lucky: both my grandads are still alive. One’s something to do with an allotment and the other’s something to do with sitting in a chair waiting to cark it. Look, Ray said I could stay here, and—’

‘You want me to get out of your room? My room? Our room?’

That’s it: he’s definitely been rooting through my knickers. That was an unambiguous innuendo.

‘I’m supposed to kick you out,’ he says.

‘Kick me
out
?’

‘That’s right. Don’t worry, I’m not going to. I don’t see why I should do his lordship’s bidding, do you?’

His lordship
. . . Angus Hines. I might have known.

Is that why he and Ray aren’t here? Too scared to do their own dirty work? Did they watch
Hate After Death
, think it was hopeless and lose all faith in me?

‘Do you come from a rich family, if you don’t mind my asking?’

I do mind, but I’ve no right to, after what I asked him. ‘No. Poor. Well, ordinary, which effectively means poor.’

‘How so?’

‘What’s the point in having a
bit
of money?’ I say crossly.

‘You’re a strange woman, Fliss Benson. Has anyone ever told you that?’

‘No.’

‘I hated school, actually,’ he says, as if it’s the obvious next thing to say. ‘My parents could have afforded to send all of us to Eton, no problem. We could have lived the croquet-and-Latin dream, but instead we went to Cottham Chase and had to spend every day fighting to attain the dubious title of cock of the school.’

‘Did you succeed?’ Eton’s a boys’ school. Ray couldn’t have gone to Eton.

‘No. Which was a huge relief. The cock’s responsibilities were onerous: you were expected to kick the crap out of literally everybody that crossed your path. I’d have had no free time.’

‘Why didn’t your parents send you somewhere better if they could afford it?’

‘They thought that sending us to the local dump was sure to bring about global equality.’ He smiles at me again, as if we’re best friends. ‘You know the type.’

I haven’t a clue what he’s talking about. ‘Look, about you booting me out . . .’

‘I’ve already told you: I’m not going to.’

‘Why don’t you evict them instead?’ I blurt out. ‘I’m not the one causing the trouble. If there were a public vote, like on
Big Brother
, I’m sure I’d get to stay in.’

‘Them?’ He looks surprised.

‘Ray and Angus.’

‘You want me to ask Ray to leave?’

‘I want you to ask Angus to leave.’

‘Is Angus her ex-husband?’

Never trust a man with too many zips on his trousers, that’s my motto. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know the name of your own sister’s ex,’ I say crossly. ‘Though I’m not sure how ex he is any more.’

‘My sister?’ He laughs. ‘Sorry, do you mean Ray Hines?’

I stare at him in disbelief. Who else could I mean?

‘Ray isn’t my sister. Where did you get that idea? Ray is someone I’m temporarily allowing to stay in an empty house I own.’

This is making no sense. ‘There’s a photo of you up in the kitchen, punting down a river.’

‘The River Cam, yes. With my brother – my nice brother, not the stupid one who uses and discards beautiful women he really ought to treat better.’

What’s he talking about? ‘I was looking at the photo, and Ray said, “Not much of a family resemblance, is there? Those two got all the good looks.” Or words to that effect. But if you’re not Ray’s brother . . .’

For the first time since we started talking, he looks angry. ‘Then who am I?’ he says, completing my question. ‘If I tell you, you’ll hate me on the spot, and it’ll be
his
fault, like everything always is.’

Before I have a chance to respond, he’s gone. I run after him, shouting ‘Wait!’ and ‘Stop!’ and all the other stupid pointless things you shout at people who turn their backs and leave you behind at great speed. I get down the last flight of stairs just in time to hear the front door slam. Through
the window, I see him drive away in a car with a cloth roof, probably unzippable, like the bottoms of his trousers.

I storm into the kitchen and pull the punting photograph off the wall to get a better look at it, as if it might be able to tell me what’s going on. My fingers touch a flap of paper on the back of the frame, and I turn it over. There’s a label on the back; one corner has come loose and curled up. On it, someone has handwritten, ‘Hugo and St John take a punt! Cambridge, 1999.’ My heart does its best impersonation of a bouncy ball.
Hugo. St John
.

Laurence Hugo St John Fleet Nattrass. His lordship
.

I run round the house like a demented person, pulling drawers open, panting loudly. I don’t care how long it takes – I’m going to find something, something better than what I’ve got, something that proves to me what I already know.

I find it in a sideboard in the den. Or rather, I find
them
: photograph albums. On the first page there’s a picture of a jowly middle-aged man smoking a pipe. I pull it out and turn it over. ‘Fleet, 1973’ is all that’s written on the back.
Laurie’s dad
. Next, I select a photograph of a smiling baby sitting in what looks like the lotus position in front of a chair. I turn it over and read the tiny handwriting: ‘St John Hugo Laurence Fleet Nattrass, eight months old, 1971’. This must be the blond brother from the punting photograph, younger than Laurie and older than . . . Zip-man must be Hugo.

Did Fleet Nattrass only know three boys’ names apart from his own? Is it a posh family thing, giving all your children the same names in a different order?

Not much of a resemblance, is there
? Ray thought I knew she was staying at Laurie’s brother’s house. She assumed he’d told me.

The person who wants me evicted isn’t Angus Hines. It’s Laurie.

The house phone rings. I crawl over to the table on my hands and knees and pick it up, hoping it might be Ray.

It’s Maya. ‘Fliss,’ she says. She sounds caught out, as if she wishes I hadn’t answered. I don’t need to ask her how she knew where to find me. I hear a drawing in of breath.

‘Let me save you the trouble,’ I say. ‘You’re afraid you’re going to have to let me go. That about right?’

‘Close enough,’ she says, and hangs up.

I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor in the hall when the front door opens and Ray and Angus walk in. Distractedly, Angus says, ‘Hello, Fliss.’ He doesn’t look as if he’s thinking about me locking him in my flat. If he’s surprised to find me at his feet, he shows no sign of it. He squeezes Ray’s arm and says, ‘I’ll be down shortly,’ then heads for the stairs as if he has something important to attend to.

‘Did you tell him you’re pregnant?’ I ask Ray. His suitcase upstairs can only mean one thing. Not long ago, he didn’t even know where she was staying. ‘Is he happy about it?’

‘Happy’s difficult for both of us, but . . . yes, he’s pleased.’

‘Are you back together, then? Are you moving back to Notting Hill?’ Childishly, I want her to say she’s moving out because I know I’ll have to. I can’t stay in Laurie’s brother’s house.
What did you think, idiot? That someone like you can live in a place like this for ever
? ‘Is Angus coming to live here, too?’

Ray’s smile vanishes, and I notice how tired she looks. ‘No. We’re not going to be living together.’

‘Why not?’

‘Let’s get set up for the camera,’ she says. ‘It’s all part of the same story.’

‘Did you tell Angus the baby might be Laurie’s and not his?’ I ask, making no effort to lower my voice. I’m guessing that at some point Ray and Laurie slept together. Why wouldn’t he try it on with her? He slept with me in an attempt to persuade me not to interview Judith Duffy for the film; he shacked up with Maya to avoid me and the police, or maybe so that the card-sender wouldn’t know where to find him. No doubt bedding Ray was part of his campaign to persuade her to be involved in the film: first he offered his body, then Marchington House as a refuge. He must have been furious when neither did the trick.

From Ray’s point of view, why wouldn’t she have sex with Laurie? At forty-two she could still have another child. If she has Laurie’s baby rather than Angus’s, there will be no genetic auto-immune issue to worry about.

She takes my arm and leads me into the den. Closing the door behind us, she says, ‘Please don’t call it a baby. It isn’t one, not yet. And there’s no “might” about it. It’s Laurie’s. Angus had a vasectomy while I was in prison. He wanted to make sure he’d never go through the pain of losing another child.’

‘But . . .’

‘I told him the truth,’ says Ray. ‘Don’t you think I’m sick of lies by now? Do you really think I’d try to start my new life, and Angus’s, based on a lie?’

‘So you’re going to tell Laurie?’

‘Laurie Nattrass is nothing to me, Fliss. Personally, I mean.’

Lucky you
.

‘I can withhold information from him and it won’t be
living a lie, not in the way it would be if I lied to my husband.’ She looks caught out. ‘Angus and I are getting remarried,’ she says.

But you’re not going to be living together
? ‘Will he be able to feel the same about Laurie’s baby as he would about his own?’ I ask.

‘He doesn’t know,’ says Ray. ‘Neither do I. But we don’t have the option of “his own”. This is all we have, our only chance of being . . . well, I suppose a family, though an unusual one. Are you going to tell Laurie?’

‘No.’ I’m not going to tell him about Ray’s pregnancy, and I’m not going to tell anybody about him bribing Carl Chappell and Warren Gruff. With regard to Laurie, I’m going to do nothing. I don’t want to destroy anybody’s life – not Laurie’s, not Ray’s, not Angus’s.

‘Can I ask you one more favour?’ says Ray.

‘What?’ I haven’t granted any so far, unless my memory’s letting me down.

‘Don’t tell Angus you know. It would make it harder for him if he thought anyone else knew.’

What happened to no more lies
? I don’t say it because it’s a ridiculous thing to say, or even think. If no one ever told a lie again, life would quickly become impossible.

Ray nods at the camera. ‘Shall we get started?’

‘I need to make a phone call first,’ I tell her. ‘Why don’t you sort us out with drinks?’

Once she’s gone, I use the antique phone on the table in the corner to ring Tamsin. She doesn’t sound pleased to hear from me. ‘Just to remind you of the etiquette: you’re supposed to drop your friends when you’ve got a new man, not when you’ve lost your marbles,’ she says. ‘In the event of a loss of
marbles, you’re allowed to spend as much time with your friends as you ever did, as long as you remember to look confused and call them by the names of people who’ve been dead for years.’

‘Please tell me you haven’t got a new job yet,’ I say.

‘Job?’ She sounds as if she’s forgotten what one is.

‘How hard would it be for you and I to set up on our own?’

‘As what?’

‘As what we are: people who make TV programmes.’

‘You mean our own production company? I’ve no idea.’

‘Find out.’

I hear a long, gusty yawn. ‘I’m not sure how I’d go about finding out, to be honest.’

‘Find a way,’ I say, and then I cut her off to show her I mean business. I’m sure that’s how MI6 would handle her lazy, uncooperative streak. It’ll all work out, I persuade myself. It has to work out.

Now all I have to do is tell Ray and Angus that it’s not going to be Binary Star making the film after all.

20

12/10/09

‘So we’re sure Warren Gruff’s Baldy?’ Simon asked Sellers.

‘I am.’ Charlie stared at the grainy photograph on the computer screen. ‘That’s the man I saw.’

‘I am too,’ said Sellers. ‘Gruff’s ex-army, went to Iraq first time round. And look at this.’ He leaned across the desk, reaching for an article he’d printed out, and knocked over his can of Diet Coke. ‘Fuck,’ he muttered as the liquid fizzed over the keyboard.

‘I never thought I’d see the day,’ said Charlie. ‘Colin Sellers on a diet.’

‘This was in the
Sun
, June 2006,’ said Sellers. ‘What diet?’

Simon took the article and started to read. ‘Heard of Joanne Bew?’ he asked Charlie.

‘No. Who is she?’

‘She was convicted of murdering her son, Brandon, then retried and acquitted. Gruff was her boyfriend, Brandon’s father. He was none too happy about her acquittal. Far as he’s concerned, she smothered his son, and he doesn’t care if she sues him for saying it. She mistreated Brandon from the day he was born, by the sound of it.’ Simon winced and dropped the article on the desk. ‘I can do without the depressing details.’

‘Are you saying I need to lose weight?’ Sellers asked Charlie, covering his gut with a protective hand. ‘It’s all muscle, this. Used to be, anyway.’

‘Sorry. I just assumed, because of the Diet Coke . . .’

‘Diet was all the machine had left,’ he told her. ‘It tastes like shit.’

‘His girlfriend killed his kid and got away with it,’ said Simon, more to himself than to Sellers and Charlie. ‘He’s ex-military – maybe he’s killed before. Probably has. How easy would it be for the card-sender, the Brain, to get him on side? Easy enough when Sarah Jaggard and Helen Yardley are the targets, women who – like Joanne Bew, as Gruff would see it – murdered kids and got away with it. But what about when the Brain decides Judith Duffy’s the next victim? Duffy testified against Joanne Bew at her first trial – it says so in the article. Gruff’d be favourably disposed towards Duffy . . .’

‘Which explains what he said to me,’ Charlie finished his sentence for him. ‘That Duffy didn’t deserve to die, that she’d done her best. He meant she did her best to put Joanne Bew behind bars, didn’t he?’