Deception (8 page)

“Kris…” Freddie began, but she shot him a baleful glance.

“Stay out of this, Freddie,” she snapped. “I mean it.”

He stayed out of it.

She took a little step towards me. Any closer and we’d have been dancing.

“He would never have married you,” she said finally. “He only let you stick around because it suited him to have someone cook, clean and do his every bidding.”

This woman was too aggravating for words. “And you think with you it’ll be different? With you, it’ll end up in marriage?” I shot back.

“Maybe. In time. If you stop sticking your oar in. If we’re left alone.”

“Take as long as you want. I have no plans in that direction.” I glanced across at Freddie briefly. “However, you should wonder about how sincere he is, with you, or with any woman. Or, to put it another way, if my arrival here has been such a shock to you and you didn’t know I was coming, maybe it’s because the old
lothario here didn’t
want
you to know I was coming. I think you overheard his suggestion to me earlier… maybe you should ask
him
about it!”

She pushed her face so close to mine I could see the open pores at the side of her nose.

“Don’t try and make something out of it, Bailey,” she answered scornfully. “He’s just a man. I don’t blame him; I blame the woman for trying to tempt him. And anyone with a brain can see that’s what you were about. I mean, just look at you! You look like a cheap tart.”

For one insane moment I had a strong urge to head butt her, like I’d seen them do in the movies but of course I refrained since I didn’t know how to do it properly and wasn’t sure I wouldn’t end up being worse off. So I didn’t reply.

“Why else would you’ve come?” she insisted, when I didn’t react. “If not to try and get him back. I told him to send on your stuff, I mean, it’s not like he doesn’t have all the addresses of your family still saved in his phone. But he didn’t listen to me. He’s like that sometimes. Obstinate.” Her voice grew colder, and her next glance at him was cutting. “But he really should’ve done what I’d said. Saved us all this needless face-to-face confrontation. And he’s not good at confrontations, are you, baby?”

I pushed past her, finally unable to withstand her close proximity any longer than I could bear her prolonged vitriolic speeches.

“Oh, I’ve had enough of this,” I said irritably. “If you’ve said all you’re going to say, I’ll be off. Freddie, pass me my portrait, will you, please?”

Turning dutifully, he bent and picked up the package in its brown wrapping paper, and silently handed it to me. He couldn’t look me in the eye, but by then I was beyond caring.

“Thanks,” I said automatically and was about to step over the threshold into the hall outside the flat, when Kristie’s eyes fell on the package I was holding, and her mouth became the most horrible looking square shape. I’d never seen a mouth change shape quite in that way before. Even her eyes seemed to go square. And her head twisted around to look at Freddie so violently, the tendons on her neck stood out.

“I told you to get rid of that thing,” she stormed. “I told you to destroy it.”

He shrugged, though his face was pale. “What does it matter now, Kris? She’ll take it with her and it’ll be gone. One way or another, you’ll never see it again.”

Her foot tapped on the floor. Her face was white. Her eyes glittered. I thought she looked psychotic.

“It matters that you kept hold of it for her,” she hissed. “You knew you’d see her again, one way or another, and you wanted to give her the painting as a gift. It’s always going to be there between you two, like a bond. And it’s an excuse to see her again any time you wanted to. You could just say you want to see the painting.”

Freddie ran a hand through his hair. Oh, for God’s sake, will you listen to yourself? It was always hers once it was finished. And whether you wanted me to or not, I can’t simply chuck
my works aside as if they’re trash. I’m a painter, an artist. You should understand that. I thought, well, I just thought I’d give it to her, when she turned up, if she ever turned up.” He spread his hands, as if to say, what’s the harm in giving the woman her painting?

“But you
told
me you had destroyed it.” Her voice had dropped so low it was just a hum, barely audible.

He rolled his eyes. “So I lied. Big deal. Shoot me.”

She suddenly twisted her head around and glared at me. “This is all your fault, you fat ugly cow,” she spat, and slapped me hard across the face. “One slap deserves another don’t you think?

It was quite a blow and I stumbled to one side, dropping the portrait onto the floor as I held out a hand to steady myself against the wall. Sagging, I raised a palm to my stinging cheek, blinking back the tears that sprang to my eyes. I found myself trembling, as drained and exhausted as if I’d run a marathon.

From the corner of my eye I saw Freddie take a step forward. “For God’s sake, Kris…” he began, but she turned on him fiercely, and he almost cowered, as if fearing a backlash.

“And you can shut up too.”

Then, bending down, she picked up the portrait, ripped off the paper and, before anyone could move she turned swiftly and smashed the edge of the frame against the corner of the radiator. The frame buckled at the impact. Then, as if that weren’t enough, she then slammed the painting against the wall, making a dent in the plaster, causing flakes of plaster to fly out in all directions. Finally, baring her teeth in a ghastly rictus of a smile, she dropped the painting and stamped on the canvas with the heel of her shoe, grinding her foot into it. Panting with her exertions she stared down at the ripped canvas.

“Not so pretty now, is she, Freddie?” she smirked.

I felt sick just looking at her. Needing to escape, I peeled off the wall and grabbed hold of the handles of my cases and hauled each of them like pendulums out of the doorway and into the common hallway.

“There goes the last link,” she cackled, looking more like a witch than ever with her hair falling all over her face like a crimson curtain. “Now there’s nothing and no reason for you ever to see one another again, is there?”

At that comment I turned around to face them, and we were standing in a triangle, with me in the opened doorway and Kristie and Freddie facing me from the hallway.

I lifted my chin and spoke.

“Except I’m having Freddie’s baby,” I said abruptly, and turned around. And found my nose almost pressed against the chest of a man who was standing right behind me.

I hadn’t heard him approach and it scared the life out of me. Bouncing backwards in alarm, I stared up at his face.

“Ari!” I tried to calm my beating heart. “Jesus, you scared me.”

“Yes. Sorry.”

“Bloody hell, how long have you been standing there?” I gasped.

For a long moment he didn’t speak, just stared over my head at the two shell-shocked people standing motionless inside the hallway of the flat. Then he turned his attention back to me. And it seemed to me that his smile was both wry and yet sympathetic.

“A while,” he said. “There’s a small crowd of residents standing outside in the street too frightened to come back inside their homes.”

“You heard?” I asked.

“Enough.”

I fell silent.

“I’ve been hiding around this corner for the past five minutes or more, wondering if I should make a move,” Ari said. “Trouble was, even if you needed my assistance, I wasn’t too sure you’d actually thank me if I did butt in.” He paused, and his voice softened. “Maybe I should’ve made a move a lot earlier, looking at your face.”

Raising his hand, he very gently with his fingertips touched my cheek where she’d slapped me.

“Ouch.” he said.

“Ouch indeed,” I agreed, turning to look at Freddie and Kristie. “In fact, this whole thing sucks.”

For Kristie was now crouched on the floor, moaning quietly, and trying to chew off her knuckles, and Freddie’s face was as grey as a miserable wet February. He was staring at me as if he was watching a horror movie. His mouth gaped open, and his arms hung limply by his side in true zombie-style.

“You’re not really pregnant, are you? Tell me you’re not,” Freddie whispered. He suddenly lunged forward, and I cried out. Immediately I felt strong hands grip me around my upper arms, and I was pulled backwards, an instinctive move from Ari, presumably from what he felt was out of harm’s way.

“Let’s keep a handle on our emotions now, shall we, mate?” Ari said to Freddie, almost pleasantly.

Freddie hesitated, as if suddenly realising I had a protector who’d miraculously appeared as if out of nowhere. I saw him judging the newcomer’s size and strength and deciding it would not be in his best interests to pursue this line of enquiry just then. And I didn’t blame his uncertainty. Ari Ferrari looked as if he could’ve been a wrestler or a boxer and up close he was certainly intimidating.

“And just who the hell are you?” Freddie finally said at last as his curiosity overcame his confusion.

“Me? Why I’m this lady’s taxi driver,” Ari said, releasing me and looking down at me with enquiry in his eyes. “Time to leave, don’t you think?” he said. “If you want to make it to the airport on time, that is.”

I gestured towards Kristie, who was still crouched on the floor, but was now rocking to and fro in silence. Her eyes were closed, and there were beads of sweat on her brow. Maybe I’d defeated my opponent, but I certainly wasn’t feeling particularly triumphant about the result.

I glanced up at Freddie. “You told me she was needy,” I reminded him.

He just looked at me.

“Well, it looks like she needs you a lot right now,” I murmured.

I turned about and started walking towards the exit. Ari stepped past me and took charge of my cases, lifting each one easily in either hand. Together in silence we walked back to the taxi parked at the kerb.Only when he was seated in the driver’s cab, with me once again settled in the back of the taxi, did he turn around and speak.

“You okay?”

I took a deep shuddering breath and nodded. “Guess so. At least I will be, once I put all this behind me.” I expelled a deep breath. “Anyway, thanks, Ari. Thanks for coming to my aid.”

He smiled. “Still want to go on to Luton Airport?” He paused, and I could see his brain ticking over. “Or maybe, in the circumstances, you’d prefer to go home?”

I stared out of the window. “I have no home to go to, Ari.”

“What about your brother’s flat in Hadley Wood? The tall skinny guy who answered the door?”

“Yes, that’s Jonti, but I can’t stay with him and his wife any longer, I’m only in the way there. And I think I’m a bit too old in the tooth now to go running back to mummy.”

“In my book, families should stick together, be there for each other, and help one another out.

“And that’s my intention. That’s why I’m going to Jersey. To stay with my family there.”

He shrugged, and gave a noncommittal little smile as he turned back to face the front again and checked his rear-view mirror for oncoming traffic.

“Up to you, Bailey, of course. Just seems a bit of a shame, though, having to part so soon, before we’ve even had a proper chance to get to know one another.

Chapter 7

My bags had been checked through. And now we were at a round table at Costa Coffee at the airport, seated opposite one another. People milled all around us, talking on their phones, trundling suitcases, reading newspapers, flicking through tablets, hurrying, dawdling, dragging small children behind them, generally just doing the normal sorts of things that people usually did at airport terminals.

I still felt rather shaken at everything that had happened back at Freddie’s. In particular, the encounter with Kristie had left me particularly disturbed, and I knew it would take more than a large latte and a sticky bun to relax me. But at least Ari looked at ease.

He was lounging back on the chair, one leg crossed over the other, ankle resting on his knee, his hand cupped around a large mug of black coffee. He looked comfortable and composed in his big frame. I guessed he was around six one, six two in height and probably weighed around two hundred pounds or so, most of which looked like muscle. The deep tan he was sporting looked natural to my eyes, not like something that had been sprayed on.

Sipping my coffee I smiled at him over the rim of the mug and said, “I’ve never been picked up by a taxi driver before.”

He smiled back, and now that I could really look at him full face on, I realised he had dimples in both cheeks. It made him look rather endearingly boyish.

He said, tongue in cheek, “I find that comment somewhat unlikely, given that you appear to be the sort of girl about town who seems not unaccustomed to hailing taxis in the normal run of life, despite your recent contradiction that you can ill afford the little luxuries of today’s living.”

I laughed. “And you appear to be a very unusual sort of taxi driver.”

“Do I indeed?” he responded gravely, his brown eyes twinkling.

Once more I found myself blushing a little and felt oddly tongue-tied. It was quite a strange feeling, floundering in the presence of a man, particularly as I prided myself a little on my outward composure and pithy repartee. So I met his glance head on with a challenging fluttering of my recently extended eyelashes that cost an arm and a leg but which I’d thought, at the time, were worth it.

“Nice tan,” I said, brazenly staring at the forearms he’d exposed by pushing up his shirt sleeves, where the skin showed golden under the dark hair. “You didn’t get that bronzed through the open window of your taxi while driving around London, did you?”

He flexed his arms, a little trick which drew my attention to the muscles bunched against the material of his linen shirt.

“This is a Mediterranean sunburn. Caught while working in the Middle East, where I’m a frequent visitor. In fact I only got back recently. I come back every now and then to check on my folk and to renew my licence and earn myself a few more sous working in this fair city of ours.”

“Driving a taxi cab.”

“Exactly. Driving a taxi cab.”

I set my cup down, curious. “Where in the Middle East?”

“Israel.”

“And what do you do when you’re in Israel?”

“Oh, this and that.”

“What sort of this and that?” I felt the first stirrings of alarm. “You’re not some sort of terrorist are you?”

He looked both amused and alarmed at my suggestion. “What makes you think I might be a terrorist?”

I chewed my bottom lip. “I don’t really know,” I admitted, realising it had been a dumb thing to say. But I had never said I was smart. “I’m not really into politics and I have no idea at all why I said that. I mean, you wouldn’t admit it if you were one anyway, would you?”

“No.”

I waited, but he didn’t say anything, so I decided to break the silence.

“Oh, come on, Ari, don’t be coy. Tell me what you do in Israel. You said you worked over there. Surely not as a taxi driver?”

“Why not as a taxi driver? They have taxis and cheroots over in Israel, you know. And mostly they’re quite well paid and make a pretty good living out of it.”

I didn’t say anything, and he grinned and leaned forward as if he saw that I had had enough teasing.

“But mainly I go there as a volunteer reservist with the IDF,” said Ari. “That’s the Israeli
Defense Forces,” he added helpfully by way of explanation, probably when he saw my blank expression.

“But you’re not Israeli. Are you?”

“No, I’m not. Nor am I a professional soldier, though I’m trained by the army.”

“But why…?”

“Why do I involve myself? Because I’m a Jew and a Zionist, and I feel strongly about the State of Israel’s continued safe existence surrounded as they are by hostile countries.”

I found myself blinking at him. He really was a most unusual man.

Tentatively, I asked him, “Is this for real? You’re not having me on because you think it makes you seem more glamorous to silly and gullible women like me?”

He leaned back in his chair again and fixed me with his dark chocolate eyes that seemed to become more liquid like every time I looked into them.

“You think being a soldier is glamorous?”

I blushed, but said valiantly, “Maybe a tad more dangerous than driving a London taxi cab.”

“Don’t you believe it. You ever driven round Hyde Park Corner in the rush hour?”

“Now you’re mocking me.”

“Just a tad,” he said teasingly. “But only because you think you’re silly and gullible - which isn’t how I see you at all, Bailey.”

I took a sip of coffee to cover my confusion. “So, what is it you actually
do
for the IDF?”

Now he gave me a wicked little smile. “Ah, well, if I told you that, I’d have to kill you.” He paused. “Eventually.”

I didn’t say anything. But I believed him. There was something about the guy that made me feel he could be a dangerous man to come up against, if you were the enemy. It was a good thing he seemed to like me.

He said idly, “But enough about me and my part-time pursuits, and time’s against me if I have to find out more about you before your flight departs, and I still know so little.” He stared at me over the brim of his cup, his eyes seeming to see right into my mind.

“So, what about you, Bailey? What’s your story? I know you’ve recently broken up with your partner, and that you went to stay with your brother and his wife for a while, and now you’re thinking of moving on, presumably to go live in Jersey with your dad.”

“That’s pretty much it. Quite boring sounding really when you say it like that.”

He smiled. “So what do
you
do for a living?

“Nothing now. I was working as a secretary for a well-known bank, and now I’m not.”

“Not working for the bank, or no longer a secretary there?”

“I chucked in the job. I rang them up and told them I wasn’t coming back.”

“Just like that?”

I shrugged. “Pretty much. Sometimes you just know when it’s time to move on. I realised my life was going nowhere, and I found I wasn’t happily employed there anymore. People should be happy in their work, shouldn’t they?”

“If at all possible,” Ari replied gravely.

“It was a dead end job. I’m pretty sure I can find myself another one. I mean, it’s not like there are a shortage of administrative or clerical
roles around, if that’s what I decide I still want to do. After all, one secretarial job’s pretty much like another, just as one place is pretty much like another, or…”

“…Or one man is pretty much like the next?” Ari cut in effortlessly, picking up a paper serviette and dabbing at a spot where some coffee had
dripped onto the front of his spotless white shirt.

There was a short silence, in which I guess both of us were busy with our individual thoughts. But it was Ari who broke the silence.

He said, “Are you over him?”

I didn’t pretend to misunderstand to whom he was referring. But I didn’t reply.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, sitting up straight and planting his feet firmly upon the floor. “I don’t know what brought that on. It’s really none of my business.”

I said nothing.

“And I don’t want to rock the boat at this early stage of our relationship.” He darted a quick look in my direction. “I’ve not offended you, have I?”

“No.”

“That’s good. Because I like you, Bailey. In fact, if I’m being really truthful, I fancy you, and I’d like to get to know you better. If you’ll let me, that is.”

I fiddled with the bracelet I was wearing. A last birthday present from Freddie.

I said, “Let’s just take things slowly, shall we?”

“Sure.”

He looked a little uncomfortable, and I relented.

“Tell me a little more about you,” I said lightly. “Something other than your work with the military in Israel.” I paused. “You’re obviously footloose and fancy free, with no ring on your finger either, so I’m guessing no strings attached?”

“Plenty of strings, but nothing knotted.”

“You mentioned family…”

“My parents live in North West London, and I’ve a married younger sister who bosses me around and tells me to find a nice Jewish girl to marry, and an older brother who thinks the same thing but doesn’t say it to my face in case I bust his nose. Between them they have dozens of children on whom my parents dote like grandparents are supposed to.” He paused, and toyed with his teaspoon. “Do you like kids, Bailey?”

“Only when they’re roasted,” I said automatically, and without really thinking about it I glanced down at my watch. He caught the action, and instantly rose to his feet, looking apologetic.

“I’ve kept you chatting long enough.”

I also rose to my feet, but I didn’t want him to think it was a put down, because I liked him, and I’d enjoyed spending time with him. But though the guy was seriously cool in many ways, I simply wasn’t sure that I was ready for a steamy relationship so soon after Freddie. I was scared of being hurt again.

Hastily I said, “It’s just that I don’t want to miss my flight. And I wanted to buy some new perfume in the duty free. I’m a dreadfully slow shopper at the best of times. It takes me ages to find the right scent.”

I was embarrassed at how lame that sounded, but Ari only raised his hands, palms up, smiling to show he hadn’t felt slighted.

I picked up my handbag and slung it around my shoulders. “I really can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done.”

Again he raised a hand in protest. “I did nothing.”

“No, really, you were there when I needed you. Twice.” Fishing out a pen from the front flap of my bag, I quickly wrote my telephone number on a paper serviette and held it out to him. “My mobile number. Call me. Please. I’d like to hear from you again.”

“Fully charged?”

It took me a moment to understand his meaning, and then I laughed. “No mistake. Fully charged battery this time.”

“Good. Then I’ll call. You can be sure of that,” he said, pocketing the serviette. “Have a good flight.”

“Thanks.” I held out my hand. He took it, and then slowly but surely he drew me towards him, and putting his arms around me, he kissed my cheek very gently.

“’Bye, Bailey. Keep in touch.”

With that, he walked away.

It was the same cheek that Kristie had slapped, but it didn’t hurt at all anymore.