The First Cut (12 page)

‘Hang on.’ Greg put his mobile down as the hotel phone rang.

‘Mr Peterson, your car is waiting for you, sir,’ Sheri’s or Diane’s or Trudi’s sing-song voice trilled from reception.

‘Thanks.’ He turned back to the call from London.

‘Maybe it’s nothing, Greg. He was probably just showing off.’

Greg’s feeling of impotence was redoubled by being thousands of miles away. He picked his trousers off a chair and put them on. His plan had made a twisted sense at the time: keep far away from Nicky and the bad karma that surrounded him couldn’t contaminate her. He had thought their love could survive the distance. After all, he had survived things that would have broken other men; as a consequence he believed he was not like other men. He veered wildly between amazement that he was still here and fear at what tomorrow might bring. But now he felt that in trying to protect her he had simply lost her. All that effort and pain was for nothing! A surge of hatred for this young man flowed through him. Jealousy had a power and a logic all its own. He knew he shouldn’t be asking Liz to keep tabs on Nicky, but he had been separated for ever from normal by Grace’s murder and by what had gone before. He wiped his sweating brow. Was it so wrong that he was trying to buy a little insurance? Why me, Greg thought. For the millionth time the unanswerable question came back to him . . . He had lost Grace, and now, because of how the past was shaping him, he was in danger of losing Nicky too . . . The anger he tried so hard to control swamped him.

‘Greg?’ His half growl, half grunt and the sound of breaking glass was clearly audible down the phone.

‘I’m still here.’ Greg stared at the shards of the vase that had stood on the mantelpiece above the instant fake-log gas fire before he’d hurled the doll-sized Evian bottle at it. Against all the odds, he was still here, he was still clinging on; on the surface he was a success, a man with a wife and a future that was his to control, if only he could forget his past . . .

‘I’m not sure I can do much more, I have to work tomorrow.’

‘OK, thanks, Liz.’

‘Greg? I’m sorry.’

Greg looked out of the window at the weak sun struggling to shine through the pollution layer. La la land. Helio was downstairs waiting to drive him to the shoot, where he’d have breakfast at the catering van. The public would watch from behind the lines set up to keep them at bay. He’d shoot images today that would remain cast for ever in cinema history. A smooth, slick, fantasy representation that bore no relation to the effort required to make it. He needed to remember that. He rang off and phoned reception. ‘Can you tell the cleaner to watch out? I accidentally broke a vase this morning. I don’t want her to get hurt.’

U
pstairs they walked past a series of bedrooms, some of them habitable, others filled with broken chairs and old trunks. A large damp patch stained part of the corridor. ‘I guess all Connie’s stuff would have been kept in here,’ Adam said, opening the door to a bedroom that overlooked the lake. The room had a single brass iron bedstead with a blue satiny cover, a faded Indian rug on the floorboards and a wardrobe.

Adam began rummaging through a series of trunks, unearthing clothing and cloche hats and papers and dust.

‘Was she an organized kind of woman?’ Nicky asked, having a sneezing fit.

‘No. She thought of herself as too bohemian to bother about order or anything. The room at Dad’s is a comedy of junk and stuff she won’t throw away. It drives Bridget mad because it spoils her modern, clean-line aesthetic. There are to be no wonky standard lamps in Bridget’s eye line!’ He shook his head. ‘It’s pathetic what little is left at the end, in the end.’

‘I completely disagree. My whole job is about showing how much there is to celebrate and to remember.’

Adam opened a large box of photographs and started rifling through them.

‘Maybe. We’ll take this box outside on the terrace, but first let’s see what else there is.’

Nicky pulled a suitcase out from under the bed. Inside were about ten faded red notebooks. She picked one out at random, opened it and began scanning the first page. It was a description of repairs to the estate wall by the airport and of the trouble the builders had getting some machinery across the parkland. The passage was dated June 1988. She opened a page in the middle of the book and skim-read about a dinner party at the house. A date had been added here too. ‘It looks like she kept a diary.’

Adam leaned over her shoulder to look. ‘That’s not Connie’s writing.’ Nicky turned to the front of the notebook but it was blank. She flipped through to the last page, finding it empty. Nicky picked up another notebook and looked at the first page and the last, but again they were unmarked.

‘My God, my mum . . .’

Nicky turned to Adam, who was holding one of the notebooks. On the inside back cover she saw the marks of a fountain pen. In scratchy lettering was Catherine Thornton’s name.

‘These are hers? You never knew they were here?’

‘No. I had no idea.’ He knelt by the suitcase and put the notebook back in.

‘Are you going to read them?’

Adam sat back on his heels. ‘Not now, maybe not at all.’ He looked at Nicky and gave a nervous half laugh. ‘It feels weird.’

‘A bit like an intrusion into something private from long ago.’

‘I guess.’ He gave a little shudder and closed the suitcase lid, then pushed it back under the bed. ‘Come on, let’s go outside.’

They lugged the box out into the afternoon shade and pored over the photos from the Tramps doorway, and others from parties here at the house. They ploughed through another bottle of wine as they laughed at letters of thanks from cabinet ministers, written on headed paper, handwritten notes that meant nothing to them from people they didn’t know. At one point Adam pulled out a photo and turned to Nicky. ‘Look at this.’

The photo summed up the late seventies: it was full colour, Connie was wearing a blood-red jumpsuit and large hoop earrings and her lips were glossy. She was pictured in a doorway, presumably of the club, a cigarette dangling from her lips. Half out of shot was a top Hollywood actor of the day, sunglasses, sideburns and all. The picture was taken at an angle and was full of movement and life.

‘This is great. It’s a good basis for a piece if I can talk to a few more people who knew her.’

Adam looked sad for a moment. ‘I can’t believe that’s her. Not a trace of her old self remains . . .’

Nicky felt it best not to comment, but she didn’t agree. Connie no longer had youthful, even features – the stroke made it hard to see any physical resemblance at all – but the eyes were the same. The hard, unyielding stare had remained until the very end: it was the stare she had given Nicky at the flat. ‘She’s had a good life, that’s all you can hope for.’ He looked away and said nothing.

They ate a picnic of bread and cheese and pickles as the shadows of the trees lengthened across the grass. She had enjoyed the day, but her thoughts started turning with increasing regularity to going home. Adam was stretched out on a sofa they’d dragged out from the drawing room behind them. She didn’t want to go, but the longer they remained the more problems it would create. ‘We need to be leaving soon.’

Adam looked up. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’m staying here.’

She was surprised. ‘You’re not coming back to London?’

‘Not today, no. There’re some things I need to do here so I’m going to hang around for a few days.’

‘Oh.’

Nicky couldn’t keep the disappointment from her voice, but she dismissed it quickly. Of course he could stay. ‘I really need to go.’

‘And leave all this?’ He threw his long arm out lazily to take in the wide sweep of the estate. ‘You simply can’t go.’

She smiled at his insistence. ‘How long are you going to be here?’

He leaned up on his elbows and looked at her, shrugging. ‘As long as you are.’

His T-shirt had ridden up and she could see the flat hard planes of his stomach. She forced herself to look away as a bolt of desire shot through her.

‘Stay another hour. Then you can go.’

‘I suppose the traffic will be better if I leave later.’ She paused, feeling the sexual tension.

As the dusk began to creep around them they retreated indoors to the drawing room. Adam found a box of matches and lit a variety of stubby candles. The smoke drifted towards the ceiling as shadows danced across the walls and over the unsmiling faces of the ancestors.

‘Have you had a good time?’

‘It’s been amazing.’

‘I take it Greg doesn’t know you’re here.’

Nicky shifted, embarrassed. ‘No, he doesn’t.’

‘I guess we all have secrets from those we love.’

His mocking tone seemed to slap her to her senses. She stood up. She was much older than him, a married woman. It was time to take control. Whatever problems Greg and she were having, this wasn’t the way to deal with them. She needed to banish the grey, the unspoken . . .

‘Adam—’

‘Don’t. I don’t need or want your pity.’

‘It’s hardly pity.’

‘I fancy you rotten, is that such a sin?’

‘No. But it’s why I need to go. I’m married. I’m not in a position to get embroiled—’

‘Come on, admit it: you fancy me.’

She smiled. ‘I don’t think it’s helpful if I answer. It really is for the best.’

‘For you.’

‘For us both.’ Adam said nothing. ‘I really need to go.’ She stared at him lying on the sofa, those dark eyes boring into her. He’d be good in the sack, that much was obvious. She forced herself back to the issue in question. ‘If I misled you, I’m sorry.’ He was silent, staring at her with something that for a flash of a moment looked like hate. For the first time Nicky felt a flicker of alarm. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have come.’

That roused him. ‘No, no, not at all. I’m delighted you came. It’s just I . . . there’s so much more I want to know about you.’ He looked at her again. ‘Of course you need to go. It’s what you said you’d do.’ He flung his feet to the floor and stood. ‘I’ll make you a coffee. We can’t have you falling asleep at the wheel.’

She didn’t answer; she was too busy trying to interpret that last comment. Odd, and aggressive. She dragged her hand across her face. She’d had too much to drink, or too much sun. She watched him stride out to the kitchen. No, he was a gent, a special person. She luxuriated in the what ifs of having lived a different life, of being a decade younger, of being unfettered by marriage, Greg, her career, of having the ability to throw it all up in the air and watch where it fell. She had been that person once; it was a privilege to glimpse her again, hazy with wine and heat, but deep down she had no desire to
be
that woman again. The flirtation was over. It was time to go home.

Adam came in with a delicate coffee mug, stirring in sugar. ‘Sorry, there’s no milk, but this’ll make it taste better.’ She wrapped her hand around the mug. He sat down on the floor opposite her, his legs crossed. They chinked drinks, his with wine, hers with coffee.

‘I think this should be the last time we see each other, Adam. And I say that with a lot of regret.’

His expression was impossible to read. ‘Have you done many things in life you regret?’

She paused. ‘Oh loads, probably. But they pale next to not saving Grace. That’s the thing I most regret.’

‘The person who killed Grace, how do you know they’re not coming for you?’

She was so shocked she couldn’t reply for a moment. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Exactly that – her death had no motive and no reason, so how do you know you’re not next?’

Nicky jumped to her feet. ‘Adam! That’s a disgusting thing to say!’

‘I thought it was a logical question . . .’ He tailed off when he saw the look on her face. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it . . .’

Nicky slammed the mug down but was overcome by a wave of dizziness. She half fell backwards onto a chair.

‘Are you all right?’ His voice came from far away but she could see him bending over her, close. The image of him swam in her blurred vision, blending with the shadows and the candlelight. ‘Nicky?’

T
roy was getting angry. He could feel the heat begin in his belly and expand outwards. RJ was looking scared, turning almost green as he huddled on the rank armchair in the small room that stank of enclosed spaces and cigarette butts. The rumble of a skateboard’s wheels bled through the window, followed by swearing and a clatter as someone young took a tumble on the walkway.

It had been harder than he imagined trying to track RJ down on the estate. No one knew who he was and Troy understood why: he was too poor for anyone to notice him. Eventually he’d ended up at this hovel. With the first slap he’d confessed readily enough to hiring a hit man to kill his business partner. He talked openly about his past life as if it belonged to an entirely different person. His eyes had turned almost dreamy as he recalled it.

‘I got divorced, had a breakdown . . .’ He tailed off, having trouble forming his thoughts. ‘Been here for three years now.’ It was as if he wanted the company. ‘Never see the kids, the taxis are long gone.’

The anger spread hard and fast across Troy’s chest as he punched RJ in the jaw. He heard the bone snap. His plan was being derailed by the man’s weakness, by his inability to keep going in a crisis. People paid if they had something to lose, but this bastard was just waiting to be put out of his misery. There was obviously no money here. Not a sou.

Darek had kept records of his work as an insurance policy, he told Troy proudly that night they were downing vodka at his flat. Names, dates and numbers, as much information as he could, sealed up in the box at the bank. Some of the jobs Troy had done himself; RJ’s he had not. Darek had also kept records of the amounts that were paid, so Troy knew exactly what was due – and exactly what he’d been denied by Darek. It made him even angrier. Troy never met the client; he never knew their names, faces or what they did. All part of the know nothing, tell nothing mantra. But he had been the one taking the risk and getting a fraction of the reward. That had all been going to change . . . But the idea that RJ still had anything like the twenty grand he’d paid was laughable.