Heartbreaker (8 page)

“It’s all right, Ash,” she says quickly. “I’ll deal with this. Gavin just made an honest mistake, that’s all—he saw Slaney’s connection with St. Benet’s as minimal so he didn’t mention it for fear of upsetting me.”

“Yes, my love. But a church connection could have altered Slaney’s religious views. It should have been reported.”

I feel I must try to insist that although Richard had come to respect the St. Benet’s ministry of healing he was still nowhere near being a religious believer. “I think—” I begin, but this is where I get zapped.

“You’re not supposed to bother your pretty little head with thinking, my dear,” says Asherton, his voice now all cyanide and no sugar. “Your job is to fuck and do as you’re told.”

My tongue seems to have been instantly transformed into wood but I manage to say: “Yes, sir. I’m very sorry I messed up. It won’t happen again, sir, I promise.”

There’s a pause. Then Elizabeth relaxes and murmurs hospitably: “Another drink, Ash?”

“No, thank you, my love. I must be on my way.”

“Gavin,” says Elizabeth, “show Mr. Asherton out, would you?”

I turn on my heel, cross the hall and with unsteady fingers open the front door.

“Close that,” says Asherton behind me.

I close it. My scalp crawls.

“Kneel down.”

I kneel immediately, head bent, and wait for the blow. But it never comes. He’s just getting a kick out of making me think I’m about to be walloped.

“That’s a good boy!” he croons approvingly. “I do so like obedience . . . You haven’t forgotten how much I like obedience, have you, my dear?”

I’m now having a hard time breathing. I feel him caress my hair and again I wait for the blow, but in the end he only pats my head as if I’m a dog.

“Open the door.”

I stagger to my feet.

“Good night, Gavin,” he purrs as I somehow get the door open again, and without waiting for a reply he walks to the curb where he signals to his chauffeur. The car’s parked at the top of the nearest side road in order to avoid the bus lane which runs past the house.

The Rolls glides along, pauses to pick up its owner and melts away towards glitzy SW1 on the other side of Lambeth Bridge.

I’m left feeling shit-scared and subhuman, like a circus animal who’s messed up a trick in the ring and can think of nothing but the trainer with the big whip. Wiping the sweat from my forehead I close the door and slump back against the panels.

“Gavin!” calls Elizabeth sharply. “Come here!”

Obediently I scuttle back into the living-room.

Elizabeth pats the empty space on the couch to signal I should sit beside her, but I’m not taken in by this cosy approach. She’s still furious, and in despair I ask myself why I let the idea of Richard leaving a legacy to St. Benet’s drive me into a confession. He might well have left the place nothing—in which case I’d have been off the hook. And even if the legacy had shown up in the will I could always have marvelled at it and claimed total ignorance of Richard’s St. Benet’s connection.

Looking back I can hardly believe I made such a balls-up, but of course it was Asherton who skewered me. I only have to see him and my brain goes on the blink. He treats me as an animal so automatically I act as if I have an animal’s IQ.

I draw breath to embark on a massive apology. “Elizabeth, I’m really, really sorry I came out with all that shit in front of—”

“Face it, pet, I gave you a helping hand, didn’t I? I should have kept my mouth shut when I saw your eyes glaze over at the mention of Slaney’s religious interests!”

But I know she’s shovelling on the sympathy to screw the whole truth out of me. Then she’ll unleash the big blast, but meanwhile I’ve got the chance to give my story a makeover, and this time I’d better be bloody sure I get it right.

“It’s wonderful of you to be so understanding,” I say earnestly, “but I’m sure you want to know the real reason why I kept quiet about Richard’s St. Benet’s connection. It was because when he mentioned it to me last week he also asked me later on in that same session if I’d go sailing with him. So I think: oh boy, if I tell Elizabeth about Richard and St. Benet’s she’ll axe him from the client list and then my chance of sailing goes down the tubes.”

“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere!”

But I daren’t relax yet. More earnestly than ever I say: “Okay, I hate escort work, hate working on weekends, but I figured it would be worth it to get back on board a boat again. Richard said he had one of the new thirty-footers from Hunter with a self-tacking rig and a twin-keel option—”

“Fancy!” says Elizabeth dryly, but she’s smiling at me.

“—and so I thought: well, I
will
tell Elizabeth about the St. Benet’s connection—but not just yet. I thought—”

“You thought: screw Elizabeth, I’ll play my own game here!” She’s still smiling as she turns up the heat.

But I stay cool. I’ve provided the missing motive for my decision to withhold information, and the motive has the advantage of being true— more or less. I mean, the truth’s just been a bit edited, that’s all. Of course I’ve known about Richard’s St. Benet’s connection for months and I’ve been sailing with him six times, but I’m hardly likely to trot all that out to Elizabeth, am I? No way!

Meanwhile as all this edited stuff flashes through my mind I’m protesting innocently: “Elizabeth, I never thought of it as playing my own game! I just didn’t want you axing him from the client list before I’d gone sailing!”

But Elizabeth turns up the heat another notch.

“Listen, pet,” she says, and now the smile’s vanished. “You took decisions that weren’t yours to take. Slaney was infatuated with you already, and if you’d gone sailing with him he might well have lost it altogether, run amok and ruined your vital reputation for leisure-working discreetly.”

“But—”

“Can you really have forgotten Langley threatening to top himself and Petersen having the nervous breakdown and Perrivale—no, I don’t even like to think of Perrivale screaming down the phone that he’d kill me unless I let him see you every day! Slaney was about to become an unacceptable risk, that’s the truth of it, and I’d have terminated him just as soon as those stocks and shares were in our hands.”

“But Richard wouldn’t have flipped out like the other guys! He was an okay bloke, he wouldn’t have harmed me in any way, I was his friend!”

“Oh, grow up, dear! Smart, classy, wealthy, successful men like Richard Slaney don’t have leisure-workers for friends! He wanted you for one thing and one thing only, and it would only have been a matter of time before he tried to cut me out and wreck your business in order to have you all to himself. You his friend? Don’t make me laugh! If you think he was your friend just because he wanted some fun on his boat, you’re deceiving yourself in the biggest possible way!”

I try to keep my face expressionless as she unleashes this big blast, but after her last words I have to struggle to keep focused.

“Now just you listen to me,” says Elizabeth, keeping her voice level but making sure every word comes out rock-hard. “I accept that you’ve come clean now about Slaney, but you should have been upfront with me from the start, and if you’re ever economical with the truth again like that I’ll be bloody angry.”

“Darling, I’ll never let you down a second time, I swear I won’t—”

“Asherton pays me good money so that you can report on your clients’ religious interests. If you keep mum when you should be speaking out, he’s going to feel short-changed—and I don’t like to think of Asherton being short-changed, dear, I really don’t. Short-changing Asherton’s not a good idea at all—and as for short-changing
me
by keeping quiet about a client’s St. Benet’s connection—”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

“Just remember that if Darrow ever finds out where I am, the whole bloody fiasco of 1990 will be raked up and the police will land on us like a ton of bricks. They may not be able to jail you for leisure-working but they’ll smash your business by tipping off the tabloids about the pretty-boy who’s got the City sussed, and don’t think either that your precious Cayman Islands bank account would survive! The police would drag in the Revenue to make sure you got done for tax evasion!”

It’s no big effort to assume the required sober expression. In fact after all the facts I’ve edited during this conversation, assuming a sober expression is the easiest thing I’ve had to do for some time. Anyway, since I’ve heard this scenario before I’m a long way from being in total shock. On the contrary, the next moment my brain’s clicking into top gear again as all the neurons skewered by Asherton finally achieve realignment, and I’m realising that this could be my golden chance to find out more about the fiasco of 1990. I’m also realising how important it is for me to seize this chance with both hands because when I get going in a big way with Carta Graham, fundraiser
extraordinaire
for the St. Benet’s Appeal, it’ll be vital to know exactly what risks I’m running. Just how far do I believe Elizabeth’s nightmare scenario which she uses to beat me into shape?

My difficulty here has always been the lack of a lever which would coax Elizabeth to open up further about what really happened in 1990. I’ll get nowhere by just saying: “Hey, I need more information to ensure I take St. Benet’s seriously in future.” Elizabeth’s left me in no doubt about how seriously I should take St. Benet’s and as far as she’s concerned there’s nothing further I need to know. Where the truth’s concerned about the fiasco of 1990, she’ll short-change me until she’s blue in the face.

Suddenly I have a brainwave. It’s the word “short-change,” reminding me of the threat she’s just made about Asherton.

Tentatively, very tentatively I say: “Darling, there’s something that’s puzzling me. I couldn’t help noticing that Asherton was as alarmed as you were when the subject of St. Benet’s cropped up. Was he somehow involved too in the fiasco of 1990?”

The question works. Shit, she’s thinking, that’s a complication I don’t need, better toss him an explanation that’ll shut him up.

Idly, willing to be cosy again after the big blast, she says: “Get me another glass of sherry, will you, dear? I think it’s best if I finally tell you everything.”

She won’t, of course.

But I bet she cooks up the helluva story.

Before I get to Elizabeth’s story-cooking in 1992, here’s the story she cooked up for me in 1990 after she’d been forced to abandon her business as a psychic healer in Fulham, ditch the alternative identity she’d used there and shut herself up in the Lambeth house until it was safe to emerge for plastic surgery.

Things went wrong (said Elizabeth in 1990) when one of the clients who came to her for healing accused her of being a fraud. Of course the client was mentally ill and of course facing false accusations is an occupational hazard for all healers, even doctors, but Elizabeth was still shocked. She was even more shocked when the nutso client chugged along to the well-known St. Benet’s Healing Centre and shot his mouth off to the Rector who then took the most unjustifiable step (said Elizabeth) of tipping off the police. Fearing persecution despite her innocence (ran the fairy-tale) she decided she had no choice but to disappear before the wicked police started trampling around investigating her affairs. Even though her businesses were all legitimate (said Elizabeth) the bad publicity would wreck my leisure-working, then heading for the financial stratosphere. So it was better that Mrs. Elizabeth Mayfield, psychic healer, should cease to exist in order that Mrs. Elizabeth Delamere could continue her law-abiding and blameless career. The big advantage of running two identities in tandem (said Elizabeth) was that if one of them went tits-up the other was always available as a safe haven, but she’d never forgive that villain Darrow at St. Benet’s for depriving countless suffering people of her exceptional skills as a healer.

Well, even back in 1990 I took this story with a pinch of salt but naturally I wasn’t so dumb as to query it. Something serious had without doubt been going on—no one ditches an identity and resorts to major plastic surgery without a strong motivation—but I decided straight away to give her my total support. I loved Elizabeth and I owed her everything. I didn’t need to know her goriest secrets because I was going to stay loyal to her whatever she’d done.

So much for 1990.

Today in 1992 I’m as loyal to her as ever, but I’m also older, sharper, tougher and keener to take risks in order to have a fun time. Carta Graham’s a risk and shagging her would give me a big buzz, but I’m not stupid and I know I’ve got to assess this risky behaviour very carefully— which is why I’m now so determined to find out more about what really went on back in 1990 . . .

“Well, dear,” says Elizabeth, taking a dainty little sip from her refilled glass of sweet sherry in September 1992, “this is what really happened. The fact is that back in 1990 I saw no need to tell you that Asherton was involved. You and I hadn’t been working together for long, had we, and although you were doing so well you might still have wound up disappointing me just as Jason and Tony did. Much better, I thought, if you weren’t told anything you didn’t need to know.”

Jason and Tony were my predecessors who had failed to stay the course and been sacked. I was a case of third time lucky.

“So how was Asherton involved?” I ask, keen to gloss over my fragile status in 1990 and get to the shitty-gritty.

“The trouble centred around a member of GOLD.”

I’m hooked. I’d been assuming Asherton was tied in through his S&M group, not through that weird society of his which specialises in pseuds’-corner religion.

“The member of GOLD who triggered the fiasco,” says Elizabeth, rolling out the information with a theatrical sigh, “was a man called Betz, B-E-T-Z. He was a naturalised Brit but born a Kraut, and he worked for an investment bank in the City. I’d known him a long time—in fact I was the one who introduced him to Asherton—and in 1990 he was treasurer of GOLD.”

“And what did he get up to?”