Summer at Tiffany's (7 page)

‘Miss Fraser?' Cassie turned to find a tall, white-haired man with a lean face and neat moustache standing before her. ‘Bob Kentucky.' He held out his hand. He was wearing a dark grey suit and a tie that she recognized as being Explorers Club – Henry had been given the same one when he was made a fellow back in March – and she wished she was wearing something smarter than her blue-and-white-striped sundress, Converses and navy moth-nibbled cashmere cardigan.

She saw Bob Kentucky wish it too and he discreetly looked over at the doorman, who, after a moment, gave a nod as subtle as the Mona Lisa's smile.

‘We'll take coffee in the reading room,' Kentucky said – whether to Cassie or the doorman, she wasn't sure – holding one arm out in an open hook and inviting her to step into the gilded sanctuary.

It was immediately apparent the walls must be as deep as Afghan caves, as the rush of London traffic speeding along to St James in one direction and Admiralty Arch and Trafalgar Square in the other was instantly muted when the inner door closed behind them.

‘I'm afraid Derek can't join us,' Bob said with an apologetic smile. ‘He's engaged in a fight-to-the-death rackets game with an old acquaintance.'

‘Oh, no, of course. I'm just so grateful you could see me at such short notice. I'm really sorry for turning up unannounced like this,' she said, as they climbed the elegant winding staircase, which was set at such a gentle pitch it seemed almost embarrassed to turn.

Kentucky smiled. ‘On the contrary – I was delighted when the club rang to tell me you were on your way. We were so baffled by Henry's no-show yesterday.'

‘I'm also sorry for looking so scruffy. I hadn't planned on coming here when I left the house today.' She tried rolling the cuff of her cardigan to hide the fact it had a thumb-sized hole through it.

‘Well, I admit jeans would have been harder to get around, but I think Mr Stanley at the door was also of the opinion that with a face as pretty as yours, nobody's going to be looking at your feet.'

‘Oh . . . Thank you.' Cassie blushed. ‘You're very kind.'

‘We can talk in here,' he said, stopping outside the door to a large and sunny room. Inside, groups of leather chairs were arranged at intervals beneath the solemn and lavishly gilded portraits of illustrious former members. It took her straight back to her days in Scotland, living in one of the country's great houses. This was another level again, but she didn't feel out of her depth here. This was a world she knew and understood.

They settled themselves in a pair of wine velvet wing chairs by the window – she could see the buses sitting in traffic outside – as Kentucky ordered some coffees.

He sat back in the chair, fingers interlaced, an interested smile on his face as he waited.

‘Um, so I don't know how much they told you on the phone . . .' she began.

He shrugged. ‘Not much, but once they said you were Henry's fiancée, I knew you'd be coming with an explanation of sorts.'

‘Well, yes, exactly. Because, you see, none of it was Henry's fault yesterday. He was en route to see you and everything was tickety-boo.'

He chuckled at her choice of words and she grinned back nervously.

She started again. ‘There's this annual event, you see, that Henry organizes. It's called the Annual Tube Dash, or Beat the Train, as the runners call it.'

‘Runners?' Kentucky sounded as amused as he was intrigued.

‘Yes. It commemorates the anniversary of Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile' – Kentucky's smile turned into a low, rumbling laugh as he began to get the gist – ‘At least it's supposed to; we're a bit late with it this year. Anyway, all the runners have to jump off the same carriage of the train at South Kensington and run a set route through the streets, getting back on the exact same train and carriage at Fulham Broadway.'

‘How wonderful!'

‘Yes, well . . . Henry's unbeaten at it.' Cassie rolled her eyes. ‘It's pretty gruelling. Basically a nine-and-a-halfminute sprint in the middle of rush hour. You can imagine all the people they've got to dodge, the cars and bikes crossing the roads . . . Only about ten per cent actually finish it.'

‘And Henry was doing this
on the way
to our meeting?' he laughed.

‘I know, it's mad, isn't it?' She shook her head. ‘I kept telling him it was crazy, but well, I think he feels honour-bound, as the organizer, to do it himself. And truthfully, he's so fit he could run it and you'd never know five minutes later, whereas I bet all the others have to take the rest of the day off.'

Kentucky smiled, sitting further back in the chair as their coffees, in porcelain cups, were set down on the table between them.

‘Anyway, yesterday . . .' She took a deep breath, willing her voice not to break. ‘Yesterday the worst thing happened. Everything was fine to begin with – Henry had finished the race and was back on the train. We were pulling out of the station when Archie, his brother-in-law, who was doing the race too, had a heart attack on the platform.'

Kentucky's bemused expression changed to one of immediate horror. ‘Dear God!'

‘I know. It was terrible,' she said, her voice cracking slightly as she remembered it all too clearly, yet again. She wasn't sure she'd ever get over the sight of Archie's face in the split second before he fell. ‘We couldn't stop the train, because then we'd have been stuck in the tunnel and unable to get off, so we had to go all the way to the next station, knowing what was happening behind us, that he had only strangers looking after him.' She bit her lip and reached for her coffee, needing a break from the words and images, but it was still too hot to drink and she had to replace it, untouched, on the table. She noticed her hand had begun to shake.

‘What happened?' Kentucky asked gently.

‘Well, Suzy, Archie's wife, who is Henry's sister and my best friend' – her eyes flickered up to him, as she worried she was bombarding him with too much information – ‘she was there with their little girl; she's only two.' She sighed. ‘So you can probably imagine the state everyone was in.'

Kentucky murmured his agreement.

‘When we got to the next station, Henry jumped off and ran
back
to Fulham while Suzy and I got a cab. She couldn't run carrying Velvet too,' Cassie mumbled. ‘Anyway, the ambulance had arrived by then, so Suzy went to hospital with the paramedics and Henry caught a cab after them and basically stayed there all night. He's still there now.'

‘What a truly terrible story. Is Henry's brother OK now?'

‘Well, he's hanging on,' she said after a moment. ‘He's still in the Cardiac Care Unit. He had another heart attack soon after getting to the hospital, apparently.'

‘I'm truly sorry to hear that. What a dreadful thing.' He shook his head as he picked up his coffee, cradling the saucer in his palm, and stared out of the window for several long moments. ‘Well, that certainly accounts for things. We knew something drastic must have happened for Henry not to have shown, or even sent word. We just couldn't understand it, sitting there as the minutes ticked past and no word.'

‘No, I'm sure. It was just so crazy, you see – everyone panicking and screaming, Henry running all over London, CPR . . . And he's not allowed to have his phone on in the hospital, obviously.'

‘No, no, of course not,' Kentucky agreed, taking another sip of his coffee. He sighed heavily. ‘I just wish we had known this yesterday morning.'

Cassie swallowed. ‘It's not too late, though, is it? It was only yesterday, and in the circumstances—' She was stopped by his sympathetic smile.

‘My dear, I wish it were that straightforward, I honestly do. But you see, the nature of our profession means we're rarely all in one country – much less one room – at the same time. A decision had to be made there and then.' He gave another sigh. ‘It's all the more frustrating because, in truth, the flag was his. Henry's a great ambassador for the exploring community and we're very proud to have him as one of our fellows. This expedition he's pitching appeals to us on many different levels, and the meeting yesterday, really, was just a formality. But when he didn't show and there was no explanation . . . Well, I'm sure you can appreciate we can't afford to lay ourselves open to claims of favouritism or, worse, nepotism. It would have seemed, at the very least, curious, if not downright suspicious to the others if we had tried to accommodate the proposal outside of the formal process.'

‘So then the grant's been awarded to . . . someone else?'

‘I'm afraid so. We really had no other choice.' He sipped from his coffee again before returning it to the table and looking back at her with a kind smile. ‘But it's by no means the end of the road for Henry's quest.
We're
desperately disappointed not to have the club's name and flag associated with the trip, of course, but with a reputation like his, he should have no problem securing the rest of the funds.'

‘Well, it's more of a timing issue than anything,' she said quietly, bitterly wishing Henry hadn't been all but promised the grant in New York: it had meant he'd stopped looking for the funding elsewhere and had focused on nailing the itinerary and booking the rest of the crew instead. How was she going to tell him it was over? How would he tell all of them? There was no way that they could raise that kind of money in the time they had left. They were leveraged to the hilt . . . She thought suddenly of the divorce settlement sitting untouched in her bank account but dismissed the idea as quickly as it had come. Besides, Henry would never want to use Gil's money to bankroll his work, she was sure of it. She sighed. ‘This was pushing it as it was,' she said quietly, the flat tone of defeat hammering down her words. They had fallen into every cliché – put their eggs in one basket, counted their chickens before they'd hatched, run before they could walk – and with less than a fortnight until departure, it had come back to bite them. ‘Obviously he can only travel there during the summer months. Once the sea freezes . . .' It was professional humiliation, the entire thing a shambles . . .

‘Ah yes, yes, of course. I hadn't thought of the small matter of being iced in.' He tutted pensively, one finger tapping his lips. ‘Hmm.'

Cassie took heart from the gesture. Was there still a chink of hope after all? ‘This was simply the final round of funding needed to make it happen, you see – obviously if he'd had any inkling things would fall through with you, he'd have lobbied elsewhere, but as you said, it was pretty much just a formality. Everything else is in place,' she said, a pleading note sounding in her voice. ‘UNEP, the UN Conference on Climate Change – it's taken months to get them all on board and signed up, and the National Geographic Channel was really interested in running it as a series afterwards . . .' She looked at him hopefully.

He looked back at her through focused eyes, as though reading her mind. ‘Well, you know . . .' he said, stretching out the words thoughtfully, ‘maybe this thing isn't dead in the water yet.'

She sat straighter, feeling like her heart was doing shuttle runs in her chest.

‘There's always next year's grant, and I have no doubt that everything I've just said about Henry will still apply – possibly even more so – twelve months from now.'

No. Cassie visibly deflated, giving a polite but weak smile in return as he beckoned the waiter over for more coffees. He didn't get it. Assurances about next year were no good to her when she and Henry were already worrying about next month's rent. They'd been planning their finances around this expedition since the spring; they'd been banking on it setting them up to Christmas and a bit beyond. Now what were they supposed to do? The salary she drew at Eat 'n' Mess was barely enough to cover their food and the repair bills for the car; and C et C, the restaurant in Paris where she retained a minority stake, may have a four-month-long waiting list for a table, but with significant start-up costs still to cover, the company wasn't issuing any dividends yet. The divorce settlement flashed like a red light in the back of her mind again.

‘A top-up?' He held up the coffee pot.

She gave an abject shake of her head, feeling suddenly uncomfortable to be sitting in this grand salon in her market clothes like a modern-day Pygmalion. She watched as the other members shook out their papers, brows furrowed as they studied the business and sports pages. If the grant was completely out of the picture, surely there must be a few high-net-worth individuals in the club – in this room, even – who could be persuaded to part with the outstanding sum? Exploring was and always would be the pursuit of rich men's whims, and $120,000 was mere pennies to the billionaires who played these adventurous games.

The question was, how to find them without having to beg?

The light was fading by the time she got home, pulling into Denbigh Place with a weary sigh. After leaving Bob Kentucky, she had driven over to Zara's flat in Stockwell to apologize and give her the lowdown on Archie – her poor business partner had had to go it alone at Ascot today, sans eclairs – and they had gone through the menus and shopping lists for their next job, an all-day affair at the Gold Cup polo at Cowdray Park this weekend.

She rested her head against the steering wheel for a moment, worn out and wondering how she was going to break the bad news to Henry. She could see the light on in their little flat and wished she could teleport herself into his arms up there, on the top floor; she loved their little flat but sometimes wished it wasn't nestled in the grey-tiled eaves of the roof. The building itself was a junior version of the grand club she had left only hours before – cream Regency with porticoed windows, four floors and an elaborate balcony that wrapped round all the French doors on the first floor; but whereas the club was palatial inside, the flats within this building – which themselves sold for millions – were furnished in a stealth-wealth style, with antique wooden floors, Moroccan Beni Ourain rugs, oversized linen sofas and crushed-velvet bedspreads.