Wicked Beauty

by Susan Lewis

  Everything in her suddenly stopped; suddenly reeled back from the word whose meaning she understood perfectly, but couldn’t accept. She’d come to trust him, confide in him … How could he not have told her this? How could he even be here, if he had a wife? So maybe she hadn’t heard right. Maybe he’d said something else …

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  She took a step back. ‘But where is she?’ she said, still unwilling to believe it. ‘I’ve never seen her. I’ve never even heard you talk about her.’ Did that mean he was lying? Oh God, please let him be lying.

  He dashed a hand through his hair. ‘My wife is Stacey Greene, the actress,’ he said. ‘Your sister knows her …’

  She looked at him, blankly, then as the words registered a wave of horror swept over her. ‘Oh my God, no!’ she cried, covering her ears. ‘No! No! This is horrible. It’s just too horrible.’

  ‘Rachel, listen …’

  ‘No, don’t touch me!’ she shrieked, snatching her hands away. ‘I don’t know what this is about, what you’re trying to do to my family, but whatever it is, it’s sick!’

  ‘I’m not doing anything to your family,’ he told her fiercely. ‘For God’s sake, I could have taken advantage of you just now, I could have waited until the morning to tell you, or not told you at all …’

  ‘You could have told me a long time ago,’ she yelled. Then looking wildly round the room, ‘You’ve lied to me in the very worst way you ever could,’ she said incredulously. ‘You have to know, after my husband …’ She shook her head angrily. ‘No! No. Just go!’ she said. ‘I don’t want to discuss it. I just want you to go.’

  ‘That’s not going to solve anything,’ he protested. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘What about? How you’ve deceived me?’ she said shrilly. ‘I don’t need to talk about that. I don’t need to talk about anything with you!’

  As she spun away he pulled her back. ‘OK, I should have told you before,’ he cried, ‘right at the start, when we first met, but I swear I never expected … I had no idea this was going to happen, that we … you and I …’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she almost screamed. ‘There’s no we! No you and I! There’s only your lies, and some sick game your wife is playing with my sister’s husband. So just who the hell are you, you people, who think you can come into our lives, causing us all this pain? Don’t you think we’ve got enough already?’

  ‘Rachel, stop it! There’s no collusion between Stacey and me, no plan to hurt you, or anyone else. No, listen. I know Stacey’s leading your brother-in-law on, and I know what she can be like when she does that, but I swear to God, it’s got nothing to do with me, or you, or why I’m here.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’ she demanded, her eyes glittering with pain.

  ‘I came because you needed me to, and because I didn’t want you to have to do this alone,’ he said, looking right into her eyes.

  She was staring at him hard, wanting so desperately to believe him, but even if she did, what difference would it make? He was married, he’d held back that vital truth, and she was so hurt by it that she just couldn’t get past it. ‘I trusted you, and you deceived me,’ she said brokenly. ‘It wasn’t enough that my husband did it, now you’ve had to do it too.’

  ‘I swear, it’s not like that.’

  ‘No! It’s exactly like that,’ she said. ‘You’re married and you didn’t tell me. In anyone’s book that’s deceit, and now I look at you, I see a stranger. You’re someone I don’t know any more.’

  ‘I understand why you think that,’ he said, ‘but if you’ll let me explain …’

  She was shaking her head. ‘With more lies? No, I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I just want you to go. Go home to your wife, Chris, because if Tim had done that when he should have, he’d be alive today,’ and picking up a towel she walked off to the bathroom.

  ‘Rachel,’ he said, before she could close the door.

  She stopped, but didn’t look up.

  ‘I have to leave in the morning,’ he said. ‘I don’t know whether you want to come with me, or if there are still things you need to do here …’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said. ‘I’ll sort out my own flight.’

  ‘Please, I don’t want us to say goodbye like this.’

  Closing the door quietly, she rested a cheek against it, then stood in the darkness waiting for the sound of the other door opening and closing, and his footsteps retreating in the storm. When it finally came she just carried on standing where she was, unable to move, because this was hurting so very much more than it should that she was afraid, if she did, she might just fall apart. Later, perhaps, she would be able to think more clearly, and make some sense of it all, maybe she’d even let him explain, but right now it all felt so ugly and wrong, and she was so full of pain and loneliness that she just didn’t want to deal with anything else that would hurt her. Nor could she bear to think about how much she was going to miss him, because despite his wife, and the lies, she still desperately didn’t want to lose him. A part of her even wanted to go after him now to tell him how much he’d come to mean to her, and how afraid she was of losing someone else she’d put her trust in. But she’d never do that, because she could no more forgive the deceit than she could understand why no one else had ever told her he was married either. She would find out, of course, but not now, not tonight, because tonight she was just going to think about herself, and the baby, and try to forget that he, or Tim, or Katherine Sumner, or even Laurie Forbes, had ever come into her life.

  Chapter 21

  KATHERINE HAD ARRIVED in Venice two days ago, alone and still very afraid, as she’d checked into a small pensione near the Accademia, which was where she was now, in a third floor room with its restricted view of the Giudecca canal and faded old frescos. It was strange, she was thinking, to see Venice as another person, it made her feel as though her perspectives and responses should in some way alter along with her name, and maybe they had, for nothing was the same now. Everything had changed, even her.

  As Sandra Grayson from Eugene, Oregon, she was a middle-aged, dark-haired single from a north-western state, on a two-week tour of Italy. She was intending to stay here, in Venice, for only a few days, as this was not a safe house organized by Xavier, it was merely a stop along the way, until he could arrange somewhere else for her to go, someone else for her to be. Were it not for his connections throughout much of Europe and North Africa, she knew it was unlikely she’d still have her freedom, if this existence could even be termed freedom, but at least, for what it was worth now, she still had her life. However, the pressure this was starting to put on Xavier was becoming so great that she had determined to find a way of releasing him soon. He’d fight it, of course, for they both knew how impossible it would be for her to survive without his protection, and that of his many friends, but Franz’s people were closing in, and sooner or later they were going to work out who Xavier was. Then it would only be a matter of time before they captured him and forced him to lead them to her.

  Afraid that he’d rather give up his own life than betray her, she’d begun taking steps now to avoid having the death of someone else she cared about on her conscience. These last few months as a fugitive had given her more than enough time to think and evaluate, so that she finally understood and accepted the only road that was now left open to her. It was not going to be an easy one to take, for there were no guarantees she would make it to the end, and even if she did, there was only the certainty of a life in prison to look forward to. But she’d made up her mind to do it now, and though she was going to be dependent on Xavier to help her initially, there would come a time when she’d have to act without him, and she still hadn’t yet worked out how she could do that, because she just couldn’t imagine why Rachel Hendon would agree to see her alone, without alerting the police, or a relative, or one of her old colleagues from the press.

  Clutching her guidebook and camera, she steppe
d out of the shadowy doorway of her hotel into a thin, shady lane, and walked towards the small piazza at the end, where a couple of artists had set up their easels in front of a church, and the sound of an English rock band thrummed from an empty café. The first time she’d come to Venice was as a child, with her father: when she was eight years old. Though she had little memory of it now, just being here, walking around the ancient streets and crossing the narrow, meandering canals, made her think of him, and long for the time when he’d been there to turn all her problems into solutions. Franz used to remind her a lot of her father: tall, strong, permanently glowering disapproval, yet revealing secret chinks in his armour that always allowed her through to his heart. Her mother had been so bad at finding those chinks, but she’d loved her irascible husband anyway, despite his constant criticism of her appearance and contempt for her tears. He was gruff, authoritarian, but he’d loved his wife, and his children, and they’d always known that. Katherine had never shown the kind of weakness her mother had, not with her father, or with Franz: she’d stood up to them, argued back, which was why her father had always loved her best. But it was her mother and brother who had been destroyed by his death, not her, and she’d considered it her place to avenge them.

  How idealistic and naive she’d once been. She could almost hear Franz saying it now, indeed she almost wanted to hear it, for she’d been alone for so long she needed to hear a familiar voice, see a smile she knew, feel a tenderness that was returned. Where was Franz at this moment, she wondered? What was he thinking? Did he despise her, want to crush the life from her, or was there a part of him that was enjoying the game? Of course he would be, because to him this was an exhilarating battle of wits, a series of conjuring tricks, a night of nihilistic illusions that, just like his role model Maurice Conchis, only he understood. But she knew enough to understand that he’d catch up with her in the end, and time was already running out more quickly than she’d expected. She just hoped that Xavier managed to get here soon, with more papers, another identity to help Sandra Grayson to disappear into the ether, like the many ghosts of this historic city, though for her there would be no nocturnal returns. What was Xavier going to say, she wondered, when she told him what she intended to do next? He would resist, there was no doubt about that, but she felt sure he could be persuaded to understand, and might even then insist that he talk to Rachel Hendon himself. But she wouldn’t allow him to do that. For his own sake his role would have to end as soon as she’d worked out how to turn herself from the hunted into the hunter.

  After wandering around for an hour or more, she inevitably found herself strolling through the sprawling cafés and hungry pigeons of St Mark’s Square, heading towards the magnificent basilica. The midsummer heat was intense, the crowds sluggish and sweaty, a swirling, tired mass of jabbering humanity. She glanced at their maps and bird food and envied the safe, uncomplicated corners of the world they could return to, or hide away in, should they ever need to. Rachel Hendon had her haven, in a remote Cornish village where roses grew over the front of her cottage, and the sea swelled like a blessing around the rocks of the cove. Apparently she wasn’t there now, because she was in the Caribbean, trying to find the woman who’d seduced, then murdered her husband before disappearing with her own identity. Was that what Rachel believed, she wondered – that Katherine had pulled the trigger? Or did she know about Gustave Basim by now?

  After joining the line for the basilica, she turned to look back past the Doge’s Palace to the rows of black gondolas that were bobbing like horses on the water’s edge, while the gondoliers, in their striped T-shirts and berets, sang a welcome for tourists. She inched forward with the line, gazing up at the distant bell-tower of the campanile, where sightseers were drinking in the views. Then quite suddenly not wanting to wait any more, she started down towards the Grand Canal, and cut along to an arced bridge that crossed over to the white, light and airy palazzo, which had once been the home of the late Peggy Guggenheim. As much as she appreciated the towering, tempestuous masterpieces of the Renaissance and Rococo periods, and the Gothic magnificence of the churches and museums, stepping into the glossy, sun-drenched rooms of this modernist’s home was like stepping out of a labyrinthine underworld into the bright, flowering meadow of a nursery rhyme.

  There were unusually few people around as she wandered from one room to the next, losing herself in the Mondrians, Kandinskys and Picassos, and then allowing herself a wry glance at the infamous Angelo della Città. Amongst the photographs of the palazzo when the high-spirited Peggy had lived there, was one of Peggy herself reclining on the bed with her Lhasa terriers, against the famous Calder bedhead. Katherine lingered for a while, contemplating the extraordinary life this rogue Guggenheim had led. All those artists. All that money, and all the many adventures. Like Peggy, she too was an American in Europe, but apart from that she wasn’t like Peggy at all.

  A few minutes later she moved on to admire the works of Max Ernst, Peggy’s second husband, and then Joan Miró’s Interno Olandese II which she’d had a copy of in her Washington apartment. Strangely, she was starting to feel sadder, and lonelier now than she had at almost any other time in these long, harrowing weeks since Tim Hendon’s death. She found herself almost buckling inside, as she wished there were some way she could reach out to this other American woman, as though she were someone she could talk to and confide in. She wondered if it was just their shared nationality that was making her feel she had found an ally. Or was something on a deeper, more spiritual level touching her now?

  Absorbed in her study of the art and thoughts of Peggy, she didn’t notice the man who was regarding the Malevich at the other end of the room, nor was she aware of him following her into the hallway a few minutes later, where yet more abstract and Cubist masterpieces led towards a staircase at the end. In fact, in the moment that she came slowly to a halt, with her head cocked quizzically to one side, her mind was moving in such a very different direction to Franz Koehler and this desperate run for her life, that it simply didn’t occur to her even to consider that she’d already been found.

  Anna was in the car driving back through Central London. It was just after six, so she was in plenty of time to make the girls’ music recital by seven. Still the traffic was stressing her, and the constant bad news on the radio was making it worse. Punching the button to find a soothing, classical station, she suddenly had to brake hard to pull up in time for a red light. Someone behind leaned angrily on his horn. She didn’t know if it was directed at her, and didn’t care. He wasn’t a part of her life, nor would she let him be.

  Drumming her fingers against the wheel as she waited, she cast a nervous glance towards the mobile phone on the seat beside her. But it was OK. The battery was charged, anyone could reach her, at any time, including Robert, as soon as he’d wrapped. That would happen at six-thirty, so she should hear from him by quarter to seven at the latest. He’d promised, and since she’d decided not to doubt him, she knew the call would come. By then he should be on his way to the recital himself, to slip in quietly as soon as he could get there. He wouldn’t let the girls down, not his precious girls. Daddy being there was going to mean much more than reliable old Mummy, but she didn’t mind about that, it was simply the role of a mother, especially in their house, to take second place to their busy and famous father.

  Accelerating too fast away from the lights, she sped on towards Primrose Hill, cutting in front of a taxi that was dawdling out of a turning, then swerving dangerously to avoid a cyclist she hadn’t seen. She knew she should slow down, and she was trying, but her adrenalin was up, making everything feel urgent and needful, even though there was nothing to worry about; nothing at all. Robert had shown no sign of seizing this chance to be with Stacey – though she knew full well that he still wrote her poems and even sometimes masturbated to release the prurient might of his passion. But ever since Anna’s presence had been a constant on the set he had been more focused on the film, and less driven to push be
yond the limits of normal behaviour. She was his rock, his reason; she inspired him just by being there, and strengthened him just by caring. No matter that it ripped her heart apart with jealousy that his thoughts were so often dominated by another woman, just as long as she was there, holding him together in a way that no one else could see, the filming would continue to the end, when cast and crew would go their separate ways. Then life could return to how it always was, with everyone having come through it safely and intact.

  Sobbing a laugh at the total absurdity of her belief, she snapped on the wipers to clear the drizzle that had started. There was just no way this was going to end when the shooting did, it wouldn’t even end when his obsession with Stacey transferred itself to somebody else, which it would, because she knew that from past experience. It would only end when she made herself accept that this time it was different, it was deeper and more tormented, and though she could, and often did blame Stacey for that, in her heart she knew that the blame was entirely hers. Because it was she who was destroying him, with her love and protection, and with her fear of taking him down a road that they could never come back from. With the strength of her will she’d tried to keep both the world and his demons at bay, thinking she could combat them alone, and keep him safely at the heart of his family. But despite his outward show of normality and intelligent rationale, there was a tragically delusional part of his mind that was spreading like a cancer to the rest of it, so that she knew it was only a matter of time now before people began to notice, if they hadn’t already, and then rumours would start, gossip would follow, and before they knew where they were, everything about him, truth and lies, would be emblazoned in the press – and though she might be able to bear that for herself, she didn’t even want to think about how devastating the downfall would be for him, or heartbreaking and life-scarring for the girls.