Take My Breath Away (9 page)

The rich man who burned in Paradise.

He had discovered little about Bradley Hurst. An obituary in
The Law Society’s Gazette
hinted that the accident in which he’d been killed had been horrific. A female trade union official had been travelling in the car with him. The car had jack-knifed on the M4. The woman had survived, albeit with serious injuries, but Hurst was killed instantly. No details as to what, precisely, had happened to him. Perhaps they weren’t suitable to be read by those of a nervous disposition.

A giant who chopped himself in half?

Nic clenched his fists. He’d experienced it before, this exultation of discovery, when it dawned on him that Crippen might not have killed his wife, that there might after all be a plausible reason for the little quack’s ludicrous, guilt-charged attempt to escape to America with his lover disguised as a boy.

But Carmichael hadn’t been able to help him with the last line of Dylan’s riddle.
The boy who died of shock.
Questions still out-numbered answers. He still did not have a clue to the meaning of Dylan’s final words.

Why not jazz?

Dylan, the feckless friend whom he had failed to save. He owed it to him to make sense of that last question. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t, let go of this. All the more so as he had never discovered the truth about the crime that had turned his own life upside down. To himself, but no one else, he dared to admit
the reason why he couldn’t dredge over the death and disappearance at Ravenscar all those years ago. He could not risk discovering that he had been wrong all the time and that his father was guilty of killing his mother, as everyone else believed.

On Sunday morning Roxanne took a walk across the heath and oakland on the far side of Whipps Cross Road that marked the southern tip of Epping Forest. Since moving to Leytonstone, she’d grown to like Hollow Pond. Never mind that people in the High Street shops dismissed the area as drab and depressing, a haunt for flashers and adolescents sniffing glue. For her, it possessed a subdued beauty.

As usual, old ladies were walking dogs, teenage couples smooching, fathers playing football with their boys. None of them would seek to challenge her privacy. Even the acned adolescents who passed by seldom flattered her with a second glance. She was wearing an Army and Navy Stores windcheater; nowadays she no longer dressed to impress. It did not trouble her if she wasn’t worth noticing; she’d already had enough attention lavished upon her to last several lifetimes.

She paused by a litter bin and watched the people ambling to and fro. No one, surely, could recognise her. No one, at least, who did not study her at close quarters – and she had no intention of allowing anyone near enough to try. Altering her appearance had been the easy part. The hair was first.

‘I love your hair,’ Grant Dennis had once whispered in her ear. ‘It’s very
you
.’

So it had to go. She’d opted for a black bob, styled by a hairdresser she could not really afford; it gave her an efficient look, perfect for a rising lawyer. Cassandra Lee had been so proud of the silky blonde hair that in her mid-teens she had allowed to curl down as far as
her waist. She’d always loved touching it, feeling its silkiness against her fingertips. For years she had felt as though it helped to define her. To cut it off was an act of butchery, yet she’d understood, by instinct, that she had no choice. If she were to start her life again, the hair must go. The hair Grant Dennis so often caressed, it belonged to Cassandra Lee. It had no place in Roxanne’s world.

Next, clothes. ‘I like a woman who dresses well,’ Grant had said. ‘Someone who thinks enough of herself to want to look her best.’

Cassandra always looked good. She favoured short skirts; her legs were slim and she liked showing them off. In summer she often wore shorts and tight-fitting cropped tops, even at work. Grant never complained. What he lacked in subtlety of taste, he made up for by always buying her the most expensive stuff in the shops. He bought her jackets by Versace and Janet Reger party dresses which showed plenty of cleavage. He liked sexy undies even more and insisted on her wearing suspenders and thongs, saying that they gave him something to think about when he was chatting up clients. In Roxanne’s cupboard, there wasn’t a single item of designer wear. She wore jeans at home and trousers to work and her prim blouses didn’t reveal an inch more flesh than necessary. Her lingerie came from British Home Stores and when she put on the cotton bra and pants it was impossible to remember the thrill Cassandra always felt down her spine whenever she pranced around Grant’s bedroom in her underwear.

Getting rid of Cassandra’s stockpile of shoes cut three inches off her height; each pair had built-up heels. She’d thrown away the eyeshadow and lipsticks 
and changed her perfume from Obsession to Yardley’s. Finally she bought herself a pair of spectacles with clear glass, to wear when she wanted to seem especially studious or businesslike. As unlike careless, extravagant Cassandra as anyone she could imagine.

Her former self seemed like a separate person, a talkative, pretty and vain young woman, like a character whose biography she had skimmed through long ago. The sense of distance between them increased as each day passed. Sometimes she found it hard to believe she had ever been someone else, someone whose tastes in magazines, music and men she no longer shared.

She reached the edge of the pond and realised she was trembling. She picked up a stone and weighed it in her hand. Hilary’s unexpected appearance in the Strand haunted her. She hated being at the mercy of another human being. Freedom meant so much to her. She would do anything to protect it.

A thought crept into her mind, unwelcome as an intruder breaking into her bedroom. Perhaps Cassandra was not dead at all, but merely sleeping. One day she might come back to life. Roxanne shivered. She feared nothing and no one – except the woman who lived within her still.

Returning home, she bumped into Dee, who lived downstairs, and always liked to stop for a chat. Dee said she was about to set off on a fortnight’s holiday and asked her to take care of her keys and keep an eye on things.

‘Are you due any holiday yet?’

Roxanne shook her head. ‘I’ve just started this new job, so…’

‘Pity. Specially with this weather. You look as though
you could do with a break. Or a “mood induction experience”, as we say at the uni.’

‘Sorry?’

Dee had a sharp chin and eyes that gleamed with excitement behind thick-lensed glasses. ‘It’s something we’re looking at on the happiness research project team. Pleasant activities therapy, that’s the field we’re engaged in at present.’

‘Oh yes?’ Roxanne was edging away in the direction of her door.

‘We reckon we’re on the edge of a breakthrough, you know. One thing’s for sure. Money doesn’t buy you happiness.’

Roxanne didn’t ask how much time, expense and intellectual heart-searching had been invested in coming up with this revelation. She offered a vague smile and started fumbling in her bag for her key.

‘Objective conditions have little effect,’ Dee said, wagging a stubby little finger to emphasise the point. ‘Over the last half century, salaries have quadrupled, but there’s been no effect on declared levels of happiness. The simple truth is, it’s all a matter of perception. Specially when it comes to relationships. It’s a question of how we interact with each other. Relationships are crucial, even if they are only with imaginary friends. That’s why soap operas are so popular. We
love
it when we see someone worse off than ourselves. But the simple truth is, a human being can get used to almost anything. Win the lottery or lose your legs – after a while, your happiness level returns to pretty much what it was before.’

Roxanne smiled, said nothing.

How little you know.

On Monday morning, she spent forty minutes stuck
in a crush of commuters in the middle of a tunnel just outside Bank. Someone had gone under a train and it took an age to clear the body from the line. Hardly anyone spoke, but she could see from the faces of her fellow passengers that they were cursing their bad luck. ‘Of all the times to pick,’ a middle-aged man muttered. ‘Why is it always the bloody rush hour?’

She arrived late and out of breath from running down the Strand. It was not until half ten that she remembered to check her email. There weren’t many messages. Advance notice of a seminar on age discrimination; and something from the post room headed ‘Cassandra Lee.’

Roxanne’s stomach lurched. She never wanted to see Cassandra’s name again. Holding her breath, she clicked on the message. It was a circular to all fee earners and comprised a single line.

Is anyone expecting a letter addressed to a Cassandra Lee? If so, please contact Rio at the post desk.

Roxanne’s mouth was dry. Yet panic was pointless. She must think things through. She breathed deeply and leaned back in her chair with eyes closed, trying to decide what to do.

If anything. One option was to ignore the message. Keep her head down, pretend the name meant nothing to her. The email could be a trap. Someone in the office might be wondering whether she would respond and thereby confirm that she had concealed her true identity from her employers. If she toughed it out, would she get away with it?

Her heart was beating faster. She had to read this letter. Had to. The post room was on the ground floor; she didn’t want to wait for the lift and raced down the stairs. Rio was sitting at his desk, chatting to a junior
with big eyes and long legs who had a sheaf of yellow faxes in her hand.

‘Hi, Roxanne.’ Rio was no more than nineteen, but he was on first name terms with everyone from Will Janus to the old witch who cleaned the telephones. He had learning disabilities and his presence in the firm, and in a prominent photograph in its brochure, was a reminder of Creed’s commitment to matching the words of their equal opportunities policy with affirmative action. ‘And what can I do for you, then?’

‘Your email.’ Roxanne hated herself for sounding breathless. ‘You said something about a letter for Cassandra Lee.’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’

‘I’ll take it off your hands.’ Roxanne saw Rio looking at her and wished she’d taken the time to think up a plausible reason for collecting the letter. ‘I’ll – I’ll make sure she gets it.’

Rio fiddled vaguely with the pile of papers in front of him and, after what seemed like an age, he brought out a manila envelope. It was marked
For the attention of Cassandra Lee – Personal and Private – Eyes of the Addressee only
. ‘Must be important,’ he said brightly. He had the envelope in his hand but did not pass it to her.

‘Just the usual legal stuff,’ Roxanne said. ‘You know what solicitors are like. They always make things sound more important than they really are.’

‘Yeah, right. This Cassandra Lee’s a client of yours, then?’

He smiled broadly and for an insane moment, Roxanne thought that he was taunting her, that he had already unlocked her secret. She had to remind herself that he always enjoyed passing the time of day with
colleagues. He loved his job and already she’d heard him say more than once how glad he was that the firm had given him the chance to climb off the scrap heap. Every little thing about the legal profession seemed to fascinate him. She was desperate to snatch the letter from him and run off to some safe place where she could study its contents in private. But it would never do to upset Rio. There was no hurrying him. Everything had to be done at his pace. The last thing she needed was for him to tell people that she’d been rude to him when he’d given her a letter for someone called Cassandra Lee.

Roxanne gave an ambiguous grunt. ‘Anyway, thanks for notifying me that it had arrived. I’ve been waiting for this.’

‘All part of the service,’ Rio said, beaming.

She stretched out her hand and, obediently, he pressed the envelope into her palm. ‘Tell me, when did it arrive?’

He frowned. ‘Well, I don’t know exactly. It was waiting when I got back from taking an urgent delivery up to Ben.’

She realised that he might be reading into her question an implied criticism, a suggestion that he should have been quicker to let her know that the envelope had arrived. ‘I mean, I’m just interested, that’s all. I wasn’t expecting it so soon, otherwise I’d have warned you that it was for me.’

Evidently she’d picked the right lie to tell, for he smiled again. ‘That’s all right, then.’

She glanced at the envelope. The words on the front were typed. No stamp or delivery label. ‘So it was handed in? Obviously not sent by courier. Who brought it in, do you know?’

‘Soon tell you,’ Rio said. He lifted the phone and after a few words with one of the girls on reception turned back to Roxanne. ‘Funny. Mandy says it was found on one of the tables in reception. How it got there, she doesn’t know. Maybe someone brought it in and then decided they wouldn’t wait for a receipt or anything.’

Roxanne couldn’t think of anything else to ask. ‘All right. You’ve been a marvellous help.’

‘My pleasure. So how are you doing, Roxanne?’ he asked, giving an elaborate wink to the office junior.

Roxanne smiled through gritted teeth. ‘I was just thinking when I arrived this morning. So far, so good.’

She closed the door of her room, switched off the telephone and ripped open the envelope. There was no letter inside, just a sheet of A4 paper bearing a single typed sentence:

You can change your name, but you can’t change who you are.

The brutal simplicity of those dozen words hit her like a glancing blow from an iron bar. She felt dizzy and there was a ringing in her ears. It wasn’t just that her secret was out. The words barely disguised the anonymous writer’s contempt for her. Her skin itched. She felt stained and frightened.

As if trying to crack an elaborate code, she stared at the message, but discovered no clues. A flame of anger began to burn inside her. It was so unfair, so fucking unfair. Sooner or later she would have to decide whether to throw up the job before she was discovered and sacked – or fight back. At once she knew the answer. She would fight, as Cassandra Lee had fought.

‘Penny for them!’

Chloe, who else? Peering round the door, wearing a
grin which robbed her words of much of their sting. Roxanne pretended to yawn and said, ‘Sorry, my mind’s wandering. I worked quite a bit of the weekend, sorting out these witness statements.’

‘Naughty. You know what they say about all work and no play!’ Chloe sighed theatrically and started talking about her implants again. ‘Three hundred and fifty milligrammes of silicone in there, believe it or not! You should have seen the bruises. The first time I looked, I nearly died!’

Roxanne already knew the story by heart: the operation had been the brainchild of a wealthy boyfriend. He’d footed the bill of a fancy Harley Street surgeon. Six weeks after the bandages came off, Chloe had kicked the chap into touch. Girl power.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Sorry, I’m disturbing you, aren’t I? You only have to say, you know.’

Chloe sounded so hurt that Roxanne had an urge to grasp her hand and apologise for her brusque response. Before she could do anything, Chloe was glancing over her shoulder on her way out.

‘Maybe,’ she said tentatively, ‘we could get together sometime. Go to a club together or something.’

‘Honestly, I have so much to do that…’

Chloe looked puzzled. ‘Don’t you ever relax? Or it simply that you don’t like mixing?’

Roxanne said carefully, ‘I suppose the truth is, I am a bit of a loner.’

‘I’ve noticed,’ Chloe said in an arch tone that Roxanne found unexpectedly menacing. ‘Quite mysterious.’

The door closed and she was alone again. Roxanne fished inside her pocket for the crumpled note and spread it out on the desk before her.