Never Tell

by Seeber, Claire

  ‘Isn’t there? You’re a fan of Blake, I suppose?’ he said.

  ‘Not really.’ And the end was about to be blocked before I reached it.

  ‘My son liked his later work, of course. All the nationalistic stuff about poor Albion. I have great sympathies for that, especially today.’

  ‘Why?’ I held his gaze.

  ‘Who would ever have believed the BNP would be ascending as they are now? Such oiks really, which is a shame. Still, overcrowded and buffeted Britain.’ Higham downed the last of his brandy. ‘We have to make a stand, don’t you think, Rose?’

  ‘Against what?’

  ‘Immigration? Integration?’

  ‘No, actually.’ I felt sickness in my craw. ‘I really don’t.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’ He sighed deeply. ‘But I digress. And I’m forgetting how well you knew Dalziel. You would remember all his little foibles.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I did actually.’ I looked at his father. ‘Know him that well, I mean.’

  Where was this all going?

  ‘Dalziel loved all those dreadful flouncy angels flapping about in Blake’s art.’ He tapped his cigar on the table again. ‘Before he became obsessed with bloody Milton, anyway. Ridiculous obsession. I never understood it.’

  One of the cream petals had a tiny stain of burgundy on it. Like wine. Or blood. I stared at it.

  ‘Dalziel once told me,’ I cleared my throat, ‘he once said he thought his mother was a fallen angel.’

  ‘A fallen angel?’ Higham let out a short bark of laughter. It had less joy or mirth in it than any laugh I’d ever heard. ‘That bloody lunatic? Christ. Poor misguided boy.’

  ‘I think he identified with something in the poem – in Paradise Lost,’ I said quietly. ‘The moral choice between heaven and hell. He was really struggling at the end.’

  For a moment we gazed at one another, and I knew we recognised our mutual shame, shame for the roles we had inadvertently played that cold spring evening so many years ago.

  ‘I still miss him, you know,’ I said. ‘I really do. He was – he was amazing. Despite what happened in the end.’

  Our gazes locked. There was no place to hide.

  ‘He was flawed,’ Higham said coldly. ‘Deeply flawed, poor boy.’

  Downstairs the guffaws grew: presumably indicating the meeting was drawing to a close. Higham checked his watch. ‘So – the job?’

  ‘And what’s the condition, Lord Higham?’

  ‘Straight to the point. I like that in a woman.’ The waitress appeared at his elbow now with a lighter. She was very young. ‘Come now, Rose. You must know what the conditions are.’

  ‘Must I?’

  ‘Oh, I think so, my dear Rose. I mean, you’re a bright girl. You must know what serves you best. Especially with your husband so far out of reach.’

  ‘I think I’d better go now.’ I stood.

  ‘Must you?’ He pulled the waitress’s hand down to cigar level. ‘Got to sort out the little worm, eh? I must say, it’s really not a good idea to send people in to threaten me.’

  ‘Sorry?’ I felt wrong-footed suddenly. Scared even.

  ‘Have you met my youngest? Charlie?’ He changed tack abruptly, dropping the name in like we were at some kind of social gathering.

  ‘Not really.’ My stomach clenched. ‘He came to a party at my house, but I didn’t know who he was.’

  ‘Charlie is my latest worry.’ He gazed at me. His eyes bulged unattractively, like congealed aspic. ‘Despite a brilliant education, he’s gone off the rails. I’ve had to cut the ties for a while. Financially, I mean. I fear – I fear he might be going down the route his brother did.’

  My mind was racing, trying to make sense of his words.

  ‘So you understand me?’ Higham smiled a grim smile. ‘Sending people to extort money is never going to be wise.’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’ But with a sinking heart, I remembered the photos in the cupboard. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I lied.

  He stared at me. And his eyes, they suddenly reminded me of someone else – I just couldn’t think who. Not Charlie with his limpid dark eyes. Not Dalziel, whose amber eyes had been slanted and beautiful. Someone I’d seen more recently.

  ‘Well, it’s been delightful meeting you again, after all this time.’ He was still holding the girl’s hand. ‘You know, I have such little time now for R & R. So little time for family. Though of course,’ he let her go now, ‘I do what I can to protect them.’

  ‘I guess everyone has to make sacrifices,’ I said. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Sacrifices,’ Higham said slowly. His eyes were blank now; blank and staring like the dead. ‘Not one of my most favourite words, Rose.’

  I thought back to Oxford; to the little boy in the bed. The little boy Charlie. I wondered exactly what he remembered today. Christ, what a family. What a mess.

  ‘Really?’ I looked back: I held my nerve.

  ‘Think on the job. You’ve a few days to decide.’

  We both knew that I would never work for him. I turned towards the stairs.

  ‘Oh, and, Rose?’

  I turned back.

  ‘Dear sick Rose. Do send my love to your children. Hadi Kattan told me they were delightful.’

  ‘Mr Kattan? He never met them,’ I stammered.

  ‘Oh – didn’t he?’ Higham stood now, brushing imaginary crumbs from his trousers, cigar clamped between his teeth. ‘I must have got him confused with someone else. Easily done.’

  ‘When did he say that? What’s your link with Kattan?’ I asked. ‘Are you friends?’

  ‘All these questions, my dear. Anyone would think you were a journalist.’ His tone was mocking.

  ‘Just answer the question, please.’ I bit the inside of my lip. ‘Please, Lord Higham.’

  ‘I’m not sure “friends” would be quite right, my dear. We’ve known each other – well, for ever, it seems.’

  I thought of Peggy’s cuttings. ‘Because of the oil embargo?’

  ‘Maybe. I knew his wife, Alia, briefly. A long time ago. And her son, Ash.’ Higham smiled again now, his arm around the young girl who blinked impassively. I hated him at that moment. ‘Actually, Kattan rented my Cotswolds house recently. Perhaps you know it?’

  My skin crawling, I paused for a second, looking down the stairs, racking my brain.

  ‘Do you remember the end of Blake’s rose poem?’ I pulled myself up tall. ‘If my memory serves me right, it’s: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. Pretty apt, I’d say.’

  Then I ran down the stairs and out of the restaurant. The driver opened the passenger door of the car as I passed.

  ‘I’ll walk, thanks,’ I said. The evening was clear, the sun a dusky pink orb just dissolving behind the city’s skyline. I knew I was setting off into my own howling storm.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.

  Samuel Johnson

  I took the children home the next day. There was nothing for us here except immediate danger and I couldn’t see James again until next week. I knew I’d never work for Higham; I feared I might not work again at all right now. I was exhausted by everything and utterly confused; unsure which way to turn.

  I’d spent hours making calls – and frighteningly, I’d found the same story all over town. Ex-colleagues weren’t answering; no one was hiring because of the ‘global downturn’; no one was posting abroad. Higham’s name resounded round my head; somehow it seemed his tentacles had crept into my life and were strangling it. I could only think that he was punishing James and me for knowing Dalziel – and I’d always known that I would pay for my mistake. I just didn’t realise the banker would claim everything at once.

  In the past when things had got tough in any area of my life, I’d run. I’d follow a story until it unfolded as far as I could take it. If I was unhappy or anxious, I’d bury it beneath work. I’d jump on a plane, I’d live out of a suitcase. I was addic
ted to moving on. Everything that happened to me at college had shaped me, made me reckless in a way I hadn’t been naturally. Later, when I found that I was pregnant with Alicia, I weaned myself off the danger and took different assignments; I stopped running and settled down to domestic bliss.

  But now I wanted to run again. I wanted to scoop up my children and disappear them to safety. I was facing the truth head-on and it was this: I wanted out of me and James, I wanted out of the Cotswolds and, for the first time, London was no longer an option. I’d loved it for so long, but now I was tired of the buzz and adrenalin of a city that suddenly seemed mired in corruption. I craved sanctuary, although I knew now it didn’t lie with anyone apart from myself and my family.

  But for now, our little village would have to suffice. Jen and I hugged goodbye outside her flat.

  ‘You be careful, Rose. No more funny business,’ she made me promise, and we set off for home.

  ‘Cor, who’s been eating garlic?’ Alicia wrinkled up her nose and opened her window. ‘It smells.’

  ‘There’s a garlic in Doctor Who,’ Freddie said solemnly. ‘A bad garlic what will explode you.’

  ‘Dur,’ Alicia said. ‘Dalek, dummy, not garlic.’

  ‘It’s not, Mummy, is it, it’s a garlic.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘Is.’

  ‘Isn’t.’

  Freddie began to wail as Alicia began to chant, ‘Isn’t, isn’t, isn’t.’ Freddie hit her; I nearly hit the car in front as I turned to restrain Freddie’s flailing arm. In the midst of the chaos, Effie read her Charlie and Lola comic calmly, sucking her thumb, wisely ignoring her siblings.

  * * *

  ‘I spy with my little eye, something beginning with – motorbike.’

  ‘Beginning with motorbike? Er –’ I tried for solemnity. ‘Motorbike?’

  ‘No.’ He was triumphant. ‘It’s – motorbike.’

  ‘Fred-die!’ Alicia kissed him affectionately. ‘Silly!’

  ‘This isn’t our house.’

  ‘This is a funny place.’

  ‘This is – where is this, Mummy?’

  A group of children kicked a ball against the wall of the last square house in the cul-de-sac.

  ‘I’ll only be a sec. Stay here and listen to Winnie-the-Pooh.’

  ‘I’m bored of Winnie-the-Pooh,’ Alicia moaned. ‘It’s for babies.’

  ‘I want to play football. I can do really high kicks,’ Freddie said, watching the big boys reverently. ‘Shall I show you?’

  ‘Look, we’ll be home in half an hour, I promise. Then you can have footballs, telly, and –’ I floundered, bit the parental dust – ‘ice cream.’

  ‘OK,’ they sighed in unison.

  Bang, went the ball. Bang, went my head.

  I rang the doorbell. The PVC front door bore an intricate pattern of gold leaf in the thick frosted glass. A middle-aged woman answered, gingham tea-towel in hand. She looked droopy and sad; pretty once, washed-out now. Even her frizzy hair was limp.

  ‘Hello.’ I offered her the bouquet of rather pathetic carnations I’d just bought at the petrol station. ‘I just came to say – I’m so sorry about Katya.’

  ‘Kate,’ she sniffed. ‘Her name was just plain Kate. None of that fancy foreign stuff.’

  ‘Of course,’ I agreed quickly. ‘Kate.’

  ‘Not Angel either. Just Kate.’

  ‘Sorry. Yes, Kate. It must be awful for you.’ Effie and Fred’s voices were rising querulously behind me. I tried hard to concentrate. ‘Such a tragedy. She was so young.’

  ‘She looked young for thirty-two, I know that. She always took such pride in her appearance.’ I could feel her need to talk about her daughter. She looked down at the flowers, and then eyed my car parked at the edge of the postage-stamp lawn. ‘Do you want to come in?’

  ‘Oh, I won’t.’ I did badly want to go in. ‘I’ve got the kids. I don’t want to disturb you. We’re—I just wanted to say sorry.’

  I just want to know how your daughter knew my husband. What they had planned together.

  ‘Bring them in,’ she said, peering over my shoulder. ‘I’d be glad to see some little ones.’

  I felt sick with guilt and duplicity. This woman’s daughter had died in my house; this was dishonest and—I hesitated. But I desperately needed to know why she had been there in the first place.

  ‘If you’re sure.’

  She gave the children flapjacks she’d made herself and glasses of florid orange squash, and they ran down the tiny garden, two immaculately matching beds striping either side, a swing hanging from the cherry tree at the end.

  ‘My only grandchild lives in America now,’ she said sadly, watching them run to the swing. ‘My son, well, his marriage broke down. It’s so common these days, isn’t it? His wife went back to Texas. And now – well, now Kate is gone.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘How did you know her?’ She turned to me abruptly.

  ‘We—From the club. You know.’

  ‘Those bloody clubs. I never wanted her to do all that circus stuff in the first place.’

  ‘She was brilliant, though.’ For the first time since I’d arrived, I wasn’t lying. ‘She had a real talent.’

  ‘She loved it, she did, flying over people’s heads. You should see their faces, Mum, she used to say. All turned up to me. And so peaceful up there.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’ I had an image of her twisted body on the floor and clutched my teacup tighter.

  ‘And she met all sorts. Rich boys who promised her the world and never stuck around.’ I thought of Charlie Higham. ‘I wish she’d stayed here. There was always a place for her here. With us.’

  ‘I suppose – the clubs were very glamorous.’

  ‘It was him that did it. He came into the café, all smiles and charm. He offered her a job. And now look. So much more fun than a café in town,’ she muttered. ‘That’s what she said.’

  ‘Who is – who is he? Was he called Charlie?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t Charlie, though he was good for nothing too. It was that bloody man. He broke her heart once. Then he came back. And now look. Look where he is too.’

  My stomach lurched. I watched Freddie trip and fall on the grass, Alicia help him up. Effie clambered awkwardly onto the swing.

  ‘You’ve got a café?’ I tried to smile.

  ‘Yes, in town. It was my parents’ before mine.’ She sat wearily on the beige armchair in the corner, the fussy lace antimacassars over the arms, reminding me of the ones my grandma used to have. ‘The Tea Room, on the High Street.’

  I was in that tunnel again.

  ‘We’re going to change the name now.’ I realised she was still talking. ‘My son’s arranging a new sign. We’re going to call it Kate’s Teas.’

  The tunnel’s end was coming up too fast; I was going to smash into it. I blinked.

  ‘The Tea Room beside Blackwells?’ My voice was strangely hoarse. ‘Where all the Magdalen and Jesus students go?’

  ‘I don’t know which colleges use it, love. They’re all the same to me. Lots of foreign students too, these days.’ She looked at me again. ‘How did you say you knew my Kate?’

  ‘I – we met in London.’

  ‘And where do you live now? Did you come all this way to see me?’ Her forehead creased. ‘It’s a long way to come, with them.’ She looked out at the children again.

  ‘Oh dear, I think – oh poor Fred. He’s hurt his knee.’ I put my cup down too quickly, it spilt on the table, next to the bowl of pungent pot-pourri that looked like bits of dead skin.

  ‘Kids, we’re off now.’ I quickly slid open the glass door. I was suffocating in here.

  ‘Have we met before?’ She was standing now, staring at me. ‘You look familiar, now I look at you again.’

  ‘No I don’t think so. I’d remember, wouldn’t you?’

  I ran out into the garden, and plucked Effie off the swing.

  ‘Mum,’ Alicia whinged. ‘We only just got here.’

  ‘
And now we’re going home. Now. Hurry up.’ I should never have brought them here. Such a bad mother. Such bad parents. I grabbed Alicia’s hand. ‘Bring Freddie. Hurry up.’

  I got them to the car, apologising profusely, Kate’s mother standing at her door, nonplussed. I couldn’t tell her the truth, though I’d done nothing wrong. I couldn’t admit I’d seen her daughter dying at my feet. Not now, I couldn’t. I had to make sense of it.

  ‘What, by the way,’ I croaked, as I shut the back door. ‘What was the man’s name?’

  ‘The man?’

  ‘The man you said she loved.’ Though of course I knew the answer. But I had to hear her say it.

  ‘Oh.’ She stared at me. ‘It was that bloody James. James Miller. He broke her heart when she was a teenager, and then he came back, and he broke it all over again.’

  Chapter Thirty

  Love Is the Drug

  Roxy Music

  We settled down to our routine at home. Even without James it wasn’t very different from how it had been before. The children readily accepted that he was working abroad. Until his trial came up, I didn’t want to scare them; I thought they were too little, and when he was acquitted, well, they could wait until they were older to know the truth. Whatever that might turn out to be. If he was acquitted … I pushed that thought away.

  James was able to speak to them on the phone once a fortnight and somehow he managed to keep up a convincing front. I visited him without them, studied the case with the lawyers. But there didn’t seem much to know. The police had impounded a huge amount of heroin that had been contained in the shipment of furniture – and that was that. James swore at first he didn’t know what Lana meant about the blackmail, but he did eventually admit that Kate was the same girl from the café all those years ago, that cold morning in Oxford. The waitress who’d stolen my scarf.

  ‘I bumped into her,’ he said when I confronted him about it. ‘I went to the bank and it was opposite the café. She recognised me from Facebook.’

  ‘So you didn’t just bump into each other? Make up your mind, J, for God’s sake.’

  ‘We’d emailed a bit on Facebook last year,’ he scowled. ‘But we had no plans to meet. It was just – oh God, Rose. Whatever. We met, we went for a drink.’