Private Lives (2 page)

He shook his head, that half-smile again. The bastard was enjoying this.

‘I don’t think so.’ He peered at his watch. ‘It’s two a.m. in Uzbekistan.’

‘Uzbekistan? He’s supposed to be here.’

‘Just us here,’ said Devon, gesturing with the chequebook again. This time her eyes followed the book, unable to look away.

‘So give me a figure,’ he said, sitting at the table.

She grabbed her glass of wine and took a fortifying sip. ‘I’ve told you, this isn’t about money. This is about Peter and me.’

‘How much is it going to take?’ he asked, taking a fountain pen from his inside pocket.

‘How much would you suggest, Mr Devon? How much would you say a relationship is worth?’

‘In this case, nothing, because your relationship is over.’

His words were simple and stinging, their impact cruel because she knew they were true. Perhaps she had pushed Peter too far, overplayed her hand. And now he had sent a lackey to mop up his mess. A thickness filled her throat and her vision blurred in a cloud of tears.

‘I think you’d better leave.’

Devon remained seated. ‘Believe it or not, I’m here to help you.’

She hated the note of sympathy, the pity she could hear in his voice.

‘Take my advice,’ he said slowly. ‘Accept the money, move somewhere new, forget what’s happened and just get on with your life. It’s the smart thing to do.’

‘It’s never that easy though, is it?’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘Not when you love someone. Now please, just go.’

Devon hesitated, then put his chequebook back in his briefcase and stood up. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Could I just use the bathroom?’

She nodded without looking at him. ‘Upstairs.’

Her bedroom was on a mezzanine platform over the living space below. She watched him disappear towards her en suite, his sensible brown shoes clumping up the glass staircase.

His briefcase was still on the table. How much would he have paid? A decent amount, that was for sure. And Devon was right, it was the smart thing to do. Her own money wouldn’t last long in this place. A person could quickly get used to expensive linens, parquet floors and stainless-steel kitchens. Nice things. Pretty things. Things that made her feel safe, secure, smart, successful. This was the life she’d always wanted. Still . . . for once, she had been telling the truth. It wasn’t about the money this time. All she wanted was him – and she couldn’t have him. No amount of lovely sheets would make up for that.

She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands to stop the flow of tears. Taking a few deep breaths, she tried to compose herself. Maybe she would call Peter herself, apologise for what she’d said, explain that he’d taken it all the wrong way. Yes, that would do it, she thought, feeling a little better. Maybe this was a test; when Mr Devon reported back that she had turned down the money, he would see that she truly loved him, not his credit cards.

She glanced up the stairs, frowning. He’d been a long time in the bathroom.

‘Mr Devon?’ she called. ‘Is everything all right up there?’

There was no reply. Shrugging, she walked up the stairs towards the mezzanine platform. ‘Mr Devon?’

At the top, she tapped on the bathroom door but couldn’t hear a sound inside. ‘Are you all right? Mr D—’

The door opened and Jack Devon stepped out. ‘Yes. I’m fine.’

‘Oh, good,’ she stuttered, flushing with embarrassment as she turned to walk back downstairs. She felt a hard push from behind and her body jerked forward. Instinctively she reached for the banister, but she was moving too fast and momentum carried her on, her head slamming against the wall. Her body twisted as she fell, her shoulder cracking into the glass steps, her torso pinwheeling over, snapping her neck, her body landing splayed and broken like a puppet with the strings cut. It had been mercifully quick. Aside from one moment of air-sucking terror as her hand missed the rail, she had felt nothing.

She lay there staring up, her body motionless except for the faint flutter of her eyelids, barely aware as Jack Devon walked slowly down, and stood over her, watching the life ebb out of her body. He took a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket, put them on and moved methodically around the house, making sure everything was in place for whoever found her. Sometimes he had to create a story: the jilted lover who had taken their own life, the break-in gone wrong, but here she had done the job for him. The half-empty bottle of wine. A simple case of a tragic accident, slipping on the steps after too much alcohol.

Satisfied with his work, he pulled out his phone and made the call. ‘It’s done,’ he said simply, then hung up. Removing his glasses and putting them in his pocket, he picked up his briefcase and let himself out. Out of her flat, on to the street, as if he’d never been there.

1

Six months later

As the man in the white leotard dangled from the trapeze and poured Krug into the top saucer of the champagne fountain, Anna Kennedy realised she had never seen a party quite like this. Not in the movies or in the pages of
Hello!
magazine. She had certainly never been to anything this grand, so spectacularly over the top she didn’t know whether to get drunk and enjoy it or just stand there and watch it like she would a Tim Burton movie or the Cirque du Soleil.

She took a gold macaroon from a waiter on stilts and popped it in her mouth.

A little celebratory soirée
, that was how her friend, the Russian businesswoman Ilina Miranova, had described the party to her.
Just a few close friends, nothing too extravagant
.

Ilina’s definition of extravagant was certainly different from most people’s – no surprise if her collection of ‘close friends’ was anything to go by. Her Holland Park home was packed with the great and the good: royals, billionaires, celebrities, at least one hundred of them milling around the house and the manicured gardens in couture and diamonds.

If I threw a party at three days’ notice, I’d be lucky to get my best mate and a groceries delivery from Ocado, thought Anna, smiling to herself.

Not that any of this should have surprised her. Ilina, recently described by
Forbes
magazine as one of the world’s wealthiest self-made women, had always been among her more colourful clients. As an associate in the media department at London law firm Davidson Owen, Anna had spent the last twelve months advising the Russian as she set about suing the British tabloid the
Globe
for a libellous story they had printed about her financial affairs. They had settled the case earlier in the week, when the Davidson Owen team had make it clear that they were prepared to take it all the way to the High Court. It wasn’t as if Ilina couldn’t afford to celebrate.

Across the pool someone waved at her. Anna waved hesitantly back, although she didn’t recognise the handsome man in the navy suit. Was he a client? Or another lawyer perhaps? Maybe he was even calling her over for a drink. She was wearing her best black trouser suit after all, Italian, expensive, more expensive than she could afford.

The man turned as one of the butlers walked past, taking a glass of champagne from the tray.

Of course, she thought sheepishly. He thinks I’m a waitress.

She slipped off her jacket and let her dark hair down from her businesslike ponytail. Better, she thought, checking her reflection in a mirrored water feature, although she accepted that she was never going to compete with the exotic creatures drifting past her. At a party like this she was invisible. Not that that was a particularly bad thing; it meant she could have the mother of all people-watching sessions: the married celebrity necking with the model who was most certainly not his wife, and the high-profile lord who appeared to be preparing to snort a large amount of powder from a marble mantelpiece.

I assume that’s snuff, she smiled, reminding herself that it was her job to be discreet.

Her mobile began ringing angrily in her bag. Reluctantly putting her flute of bubbly down, she scrabbled the phone out. Dammit, work, she thought, peering at the screen. Wasn’t it always?

‘Anna? Where the hell are you?’

It was Stuart Masters, the head of the media department at her firm.

‘I’m at Ilina Miranova’s celebration party,’ said Anna, raising her voice to be heard over the banging music.

‘What? At this time?’

She glanced at her watch. It was just ten o’clock. For a moment she imagined Stuart and his uptight wife Cynthia sitting in their perfectly ironed dressing gowns playing Scrabble.

‘Well go and find Nick Kimble. We need to get an injunction. Right now.’

There was no point complaining. It was Friday night, the run-up to the weekend newspapers, and for an associate who specialised in short-notice injunction work, that meant being on red alert.

Stuart filled her in on the pertinent details. Hanging up, she looked urgently for Nick Kimble, her supervising partner at the firm. They’d arrived together straight from work, but Nick had abandoned her within five minutes saying he had to ‘go mingle’. Had to go and see if he could sleaze up some poor model, more like, thought Anna. Sure enough, she spotted him at the bar, leaning over a girl young enough to be his daughter. He didn’t look pleased to see his colleague.

‘Sorry, Nick,’ she said as she took his elbow. ‘We need to talk. I’ve just had a phone call from Stuart.’

Nick rolled his eyes. ‘Who’s in trouble this time?’

‘Shane Hardy again.’

‘You mean happily married role-model-to-the-kids footballer Shane Hardy?’ he said sarcastically. ‘Let me guess, he’s had another one of his moral slips?’

She nodded. ‘His people want to meet tonight. The
News of the World
are going to run the story on Sunday if we don’t injunct it.’

‘I think you should deal with this,’ he said, slugging back his whisky. ‘Call counsel. Find a judge tomorrow morning.’

‘Nick, a partner should handle this one. Shane’s club is an important client.’ It was typical of Nick to try and weasel out of it, especially now that he was at one of the primo parties of the season, surrounded by beautiful women.

He clapped her on the shoulder, a little too hard.

‘Anna, my love, sometimes you need to step up to the plate. Think of this as your big break.’

‘Nick, it’s my dad’s birthday this weekend. I have to be in Dorset.’

‘Tell you what,’ said Nick with a patronising smile. ‘You speak to the client tonight. Get the injunction tomorrow. Let the media know they’re gagged and I’ll take it from there.’

Oh, right, you’ll take over when all the hard work is done and you’ve slept off your hangover? she thought. Not for the first time, she bit her tongue and reminded herself that all she had to do was stick this out for another twelve months and she’d make partner. Then she wouldn’t have to do Nick Kimble’s dirty work ever again.

Her boss touched her on the forearm. ‘Before you go, can you just pop to the bar and get me a drink? Champers, the good stuff, so I can mingle. Branson must be here somewhere. I wouldn’t mind a slice of his corporate work.’

The crowd parted as Ilina approached them, shimmering across the floor like an exotic mermaid. ‘Nick. Anna,’ she purred, taking them both by the arm. ‘So lovely to see you.’

‘Ilina, your house is amazing,’ said Anna truthfully. It was a perfect detached Georgian property, in a prime location, which had been extended and modernised with taste and elegance. Anna shuddered to think how much it would cost to buy.

‘You are so sweet. Thank you.’

Nick shrugged dismissively. ‘My wife and I looked at a property not dissimilar to this last year,’ he said.

‘Then I think I must be paying you too much,’ said Ilina with mock-severity.

Anna couldn’t resist a smile as Nick tried furiously to back-pedal.

‘Of course, it would have been a stretch,’ he spluttered. ‘I wouldn’t want to suggest that our fees are overly . . . that is to say, we try to price our services on a par with the—’

Ilina touched his arm, stopping him mid-flow.

‘Did I hear you say you were going to the bar?’ she said. ‘I’d love a cocktail.’

‘Of course, of course,’ he said, backing away, almost bowing as he went.

Ilina laughed as she watched him scuttle off in the direction of the bar. ‘
,’ she cursed in Russian.

‘You’re going to have to translate that,’ smiled Anna.

‘“Idiot”. Or perhaps “wanker”.’

‘He does have his moments,’ said Anna tactfully.

‘Moments?’ said Ilina. ‘He has spent the whole night boasting about his brilliant victory with my case. The only time I hear from him is when he sends me bills.’

Anna had grown close to Ilina over the past few months, but even so, she knew it would be unprofessional of her to comment – even if it was true. Officially Nick was her supervising partner, but he seemed to spend all his time on the golf course, leaving her to handle her own caseload. In Ilina’s case, she had been glad to be in sole charge. In the society columns, the Russian came across as frivolous and silly – an oligarchess who looked like Miss Ukraine and who could drop a million pounds on a shopping trip before lunchtime. Few people knew that under the jewels, she was a Harvard graduate who had used her father’s Kremlin connections and her own sharp intellect to succeed in the ruthless, macho world of oil and gas. There was nothing silly about Ilina Miranova. Nothing silly at all.