Take My Breath Away (12 page)

‘So maybe I owe it to him to keep quiet?’ She sounded hopeful.

‘Truth lacks boundaries. What if he forgives your infidelity but asks you if his friend is a better lover? What if your candid answer isn’t to his liking? Do you believe he will be grateful for your frankness, that it will contribute to the health of your life together? Show me the cupboard empty of skeletons and I will show you a wasted life. You have had an experience, Sara, that is all. Will you learn from it?’

Chloe whispered in Roxanne’s ear, ‘So this is where you bring me. A confessional.’

Roxanne gave her a wary smile, keeping half an ear on a young man stuttering through an account of his misadventures with the opposite sex. Kobus murmured encouragement with the relaxed air of someone who had heard much worse a thousand times before. The other people in the room were leaning forward in their chairs, whether out of sympathy or prurience Roxanne could not tell.

‘Tell you one thing, though,’ Chloe murmured. ‘I’m not sure I’m up for baring my soul to a room full of strangers.’

Roxanne paused and then said, ‘Me neither.’

‘Some things are best done in private. Behind closed doors.’

‘Yes.’

They were standing at the back of the room. There wasn’t much space, since on one side they were up against the fire escape exit and on the other they had to leave a path clear for the bustling waiters. Roxanne felt the pressure of Chloe’s hips against her own.

Eventually Chloe handed her glass to a passing waiter and wiped her lips. ‘I feel better for that. Fancy another?’

Don’t loosen your tongue. She means well, but…

‘No, thanks.’

Chloe hesitated. ‘I suppose I’d better be going. This isn’t the time or place to reveal my own innermost secrets. How about you?’

‘No,’ Roxanne said, with what she hoped was a laid-back smile. ‘I don’t want to tell all.’

Chloe sighed. ‘I can understand why people come here. But it’s not for me. Believe it or not, I only confide in someone I’m sure about. Oh, I know everybody thinks I’m an incurable gossip. But deep down, I like to keep myself to myself. Until…I really trust someone, that is.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Roxanne paused. ‘Sorry I bit your head off when you turned up here.’

‘No problem. I was just fascinated, that’s all.’ Chloe giggled. She seemed to be about to add something, then thought better of it. ‘All right. Better get my beauty sleep.’

She hurried down the spiral staircase before Roxanne could even say goodbye. Roxanne waited for a couple of minutes, but her limbs felt heavy and her eyelids were drooping. Time to go. She didn’t speak to anyone else at Sigmund’s, didn’t have any wish to do so. And yet, the crazy thing was that she had actually contemplated the possibility of telling her story – minus identifying details, of course, she wasn’t totally out of her mind – and seeking guidance from the guru. She’d been in a reckless mood. Thank God Chloe had turned up unexpectedly and made it impossible for her to open up on a whim.

Chloe’s perfume lingered in the air. Lucky that she had decided to leave, Roxanne told herself. She hadn’t let her defences down too far. Tomorrow they would be back in place.

Lea Valentine put her feet up on the desk and said, ‘Suppose I tell you to piss off?’

‘I’ll keep asking,’ Nic said.

‘You would, too, wouldn’t you?’ She chewed noisily. An empty box of Quality Street was propped against her pen tidy. The smell of pot noodle still lingered in the stuffy atmosphere. ‘Why do you want to talk to Caron?’

‘She was angry because Dylan betrayed her with this woman he met in Oxford. Maybe Caron knows something about her.’

‘You really believe there’s something in that bullshit about the dead lawyers? And that they were Matt Creed and Bradley Hurst? Hey, I’d be really pissed off if you went around upsetting one of our best clients.’

‘All I want is a few answers.’

‘Bollocks. You just like asking questions.’

He laughed. ‘Are you going to give me her number or not?’

‘All right, you win, she works at Broadcasting House. Ask the switchboard for Caron Isley and they’ll put you through.’

‘Thanks.’ He paused. ‘I’ve split up with Phil.’

‘Thought so.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘You look great. Like a weight’s been taken off your shoulders. So what are you going to do after you’ve interrogated poor Caron?’

‘Find somewhere to stay, I guess.’

She fished inside a desk drawer, took out a fat bunch of keys and tossed them over to him.

He caught them one-handed, nonchalant as an Australian slip fielder.

‘Don’t tell me you’re taking in lodgers now?’

She shook her head. ‘Don’t get excited. When I said I almost fancied you, I was just being nice. Those are Dylan’s keys to our place in Narrow Court. We bought it through the firm a couple of years ago. Part investment, part somewhere to put up candidates coming down to London for interview. Dylan decided he liked it better than that poky hole he used to live in at St John’s Wood, but I didn’t want to sell my share to him. Property prices in Limehouse were going through the roof and it made sense for me to hang on. In the end he pestered so much that I let him move in and pay market rent into the business. We went back to putting candidates up in hotels. Of course, if you’re spooked about living where Dylan…’

‘No,’ he said, ‘that’s perfect. Perfect.’

At first Caron refused to meet him. She was alarmed that Lea had told him about her visit to Narrow Court. The police hadn’t been to see her, she said. They must not know what she’d done.

‘It was a mistake, okay?’ Her voice conjured up images of long sandy beaches and the Pacific Ocean. ‘I’d had too much to drink, that’s all, and it seemed like a good idea. Just deserts. Of course I never dreamed anything was going to happen to him…’

‘I’m only asking for a few minutes of your time,’ he said, soothing as an agony aunt.

‘What is there to talk about?’

‘It won’t take long,’ he said. ‘Lunch? We can meet at
the Langham Hilton, if you like. Then you can forget all about me. And Dylan Rees.’

‘I only wish I could,’ she said. ‘All right, I’ll see you at twelve. Twenty minutes. No more.’

Caron was waiting for him in the lobby when he arrived at the hotel, a skinny figure perched on the edge of a chair, rigid with tension. He recognised her by the Sydney Harbour sweatshirt; she hadn’t mentioned the deep tan or curly shoulder-length hair. A loiter of businessmen by the check-in desk could not keep their eyes off her.

‘I’m Nic Gabriel.’

She said hello in a small voice as she fiddled with a hank of her hair. Nic ordered coffee, but when he suggested a bite of lunch, she said she didn’t want any food.

‘I’m not in the mood for eating. Since I heard about Dylan’s murder, I’ve scarcely been able to keep anything down.’

‘You cared for him, then.’

‘I did once. In a funny sort of way I still do. Despite the way he shat on me.’

‘He had that effect on people,’ Nic said. ‘They kept on forgiving him.’

‘I’m not saying I forgave him,’ Caron said. ‘At least I didn’t hate him the way that girl did. You know, Amy Vinton.’

‘Seems like she never forgave him for causing the death of her sister.’

‘Lea Valentine told me about Ella,’ Caron said. She stretched out her legs, starting to calm down. ‘Nice woman, she was kind to me. Surprise, surprise, Dylan and I were seeing each other for months, but he never mentioned Ella at all. He was good at amnesia, right?’

‘To him, she was history,’ Nic said. ‘He didn’t believe in regrets.’

‘Not all of us find it so easy to turn our backs on the past.’

‘At least when you decided on retribution, you didn’t hurt anyone.’

‘Except myself,’ she said. ‘I thought it would do me good. Catharsis, right? Instead, the night I took my petty revenge on him, someone else was cutting his throat.’

‘What took you back to his flat that night?’

‘You haven’t told me yet why you want to know.’

‘Dylan phoned me the night before he died. He mentioned the woman he’d slept with at Oxford. I told you, I’m a writer. She’d told him a story he thought would interest me. A story about dead lawyers. Does that mean anything to you?’

Her face was blank. ‘No.’

‘He was going to explain after the party at the House of Lords, but he never got the chance. I want to talk to her, but I don’t know where to find her.’

She cast an elaborate glance to the Heavens. ‘Surely I’m the last person to be asking? I didn’t interrogate Dylan, didn’t want to be told the gory details. All I knew was that he’d screwed someone else. That was a no-no as far as I was concerned. You were a friend of his, you’ll tell me I was an idiot and he was never going to be faithful to me. Well, for a while I thought different.’

‘How did you meet?’

‘When he took part in a programme about the recruitment business. I never thought anyone would ever sweep me off my feet, but Dylan did it. He had this knack of making me think I was the only thing in
the world that really mattered to him. Bullshit, of course, but I fell for it. I still can’t believe I was so stupid.’

She moistened her lips and Nic guessed she was on the verge of tears. He knew he ought to stop asking questions that would hurt her, but he couldn’t help himself. He had to find out more.

‘Tell me about Oxford – he went on his own, presumably?’

‘Sure, for a whole weekend. He said it was a business thing. A meeting, a conference, I haven’t a clue what he was up to. I thought it might be nice to have a look at the dreaming spires, but he told me we’d hardly have any time together. He had to schmooze. That was the word he used.’ As her voice hardened, Nic could hear the bitterness rising to the surface. ‘He was so open and casual about it, I never dreamed he had any intention of fucking the first woman whose path he crossed. The bastard. The utter bastard.’

She fumbled in her bag for a tissue. As she wiped her cheeks, Nic said, ‘How did you find out?’

‘It was a couple of days after he came back. He seemed distracted. I could tell there was something on his mind. I asked him about it, but he fobbed me off. I started wondering what he might have got up to at the conference. When he was asleep, I checked his wallet. On the back of one of his own business cards was a woman’s name and an Oxford phone number. Purple ink, a woman’s handwriting.’

She lapsed into silence and took a sip of coffee. He said, ‘It might have been perfectly innocent.’

A pitying look. ‘With two big kisses under her name? I think I was entitled to be a tad suspicious, don’t you?’

‘So you confronted him?’

‘At least he didn’t insult my intelligence by denying it. He said it was a one-off. You know something? If I’d believed that, I might, I just might, have given him another chance. But like I said, he’d not been himself after Oxford. I could tell she’d made an impact. Why keep a note of her number otherwise?’

‘What did he tell you about her?’

‘Not much. He said they’d both got pissed together and started doing what came naturally. He tried to say that he needed to keep in touch with her because of some information she’d given him. According to Dylan, she was a basket case. She’d tried to kill herself more than once. I didn’t need to worry, he said, she was crazy about someone else, crazy to the point of obsession.’

‘Did he say who she was crazy about?’

‘No, and I didn’t ask. I said we were through. He pleaded for another chance. He was so well-rehearsed, it obviously wasn’t the first time he’d said that sort of thing. I wonder sometimes why it took me so long to wake up to what he was really like.’

‘So you walked out on him?’

‘Yes. I’d been staying over regularly at Narrow Court. Still kept my own bedsit, though. Just as well. After I went back there, Dylan called me several times. I used to keep playing his voice back on the answering machine, listening to him saying that I didn’t understand. Stupid bastard. I understood, all right. Too bloody well.’

Her voice had risen and a spotty young delivery man who had been eyeing her up from the concierge’s desk glanced hurriedly away. Nic poured out more coffee.

‘You never saw him again?’

Her face creased in self-disgust. ‘I made a mistake, right? He called me, asked if we could have a truce, offered me dinner. Afterwards he asked me back to his flat and like a fool I said yes.’

‘And?’

‘I was too suspicious for my own good. Early the next morning, while he was still in bed. I checked the last number he’d dialled. Guess what? It belonged to the lady from Oxford. This time I didn’t bother to wake him up. I just scrawled a message on the steamed-up bathroom window. I’ll spare your blushes, I won’t repeat what I said. Not too lady-like, I’m afraid. Then I walked out. Out of his life forever, as far as I was concerned.’

‘Did he contact you again?’

‘Sure, there were more calls. I never answered. I kept the machine on all the time. I couldn’t bring myself to have a conversation with him. He was the original two-timing creep and I didn’t want to think about him any more, but somehow I couldn’t help it. Each time he rang, it made me angrier. He kept saying it wasn’t the way I thought. As if I was born yesterday.’

‘You decided to teach him a lesson.’

‘Yeah, well. It seemed like a good idea at the time. You remember that leather coat of his? He cared for it more than he ever cared for me, that’s for sure. Same goes for his bloody laptop. I had this awful worry. What if he kept details of his conquests on there? It made my flesh creep even to think about it. I could just picture him, tapping in the data. Dates, times, places. Positions. Scores. Christ, he could be slimy. When it was over between us, I realised just what a sleazeball
he was. I came to my senses. Shame it didn’t happen earlier.’

‘So you decided to dump the laptop?’

‘Sure. It had to go. I couldn’t bear to think of our time together being reduced to entries in some sort of love rat’s league table. So I went back to his place. It was too easy. I still had the key. The moment I started cutting up his coat, I began to feel better. Then I found his laptop, locked away in a drawer. I could have hugged myself. I thought to myself: this is payback time.’

Her eyes gleamed at the recollection. Nic could picture her, prowling from room to room, planning what havoc to wreak.

‘I took a hammer from his kitchen cupboard and wrecked the bloody thing. When it was useless, I went out on to the balcony and chucked it into the Thames. It was a beautiful evening and I felt as though I had my life back. I could start afresh. Dylan was done for.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘I hate myself now. It’s as if I wished for what happened to him.’

‘You couldn’t have known.’

‘It was childish of me. I wish I’d been able to put my relationship with Dylan down to experience instead of bearing a grudge. It isn’t healthy.’

‘Thanks for talking to me.’

‘Sorry I can’t help you any more. I don’t know anything about this woman you’re interested in. Not what she did, not anything.’

‘You could tell me her name.’

‘Didn’t I mention it? It was Jasmine. Dylan called her Jazz, for short.’

‘
Why not Jazz
?’ Nic asked himself as he paused outside Hamley’s shop window. Inside, toy trains travelled in
an endless circuit around a make-believe landscape of carefully painted paper mache. ‘Why not Jasmine?’

The question fizzed around in his mind throughout the long walk to Limehouse and his new home. Another scorching day in the city and tempers were fraying. Taxi drivers leaned out of their cab windows to bellow abuse at jaywalkers, queuing cars hooted as cyclists freewheeled past them, dossers swore when camera-laden tourists ignored their pleas for loose change. Behind the dark glasses, his eyes were sore and the sun was burning his forehead. He felt sticky and overdressed in his tracksuit.

The house in Narrow Court provided a strictly functional contrast to the converted Clerkenwell schoolhouse. The decor was chainstore-bland, the solitary design flourish a small wrought-iron balcony overlooking the river. Dylan had made little effort to impress his personality upon the place. According to Lea, his older sister had come down from Porthmadog to collect his personal possessions. She had not left much: a hairy soap cake here, a tin of digestive biscuits there. Presumably she wasn’t much of reader: Dylan’s dog-eared paperback novels remained untouched, along with, improbably, a complete Shakespeare, book-marked with a taxi receipt at the end of the first act of
Othello
.

Traces of someone’s existence soon faded after they were dead. From a cursory look in cupboards and drawers, it seemed that Dylan had left nothing which would cast light on his relationship with Jazz or the tale she had told him. The laptop had been his life-support. With that gone, there were no clues.

He didn’t give up without a fight, it wasn’t in his nature. Caron had told him which weekend Dylan had
spent in Oxford and when he rang Lea, she confirmed that her partner had booked in on a conference at Balliol on careers in the law. A check with the college confirmed that Dylan had registered there but they had no record of a female delegate called Jasmine. She must have been a casual pick-up. In the end he had to admit defeat – at least for the moment. Oxford might be a fraction the size of London, but to go there in the hope of tracking down an unknown woman, about whom he knew nothing but her first name, would be the ultimate fool’s errand.