by Liz Fielding
She wished she had taken a closer look at that street map of Marseilles downstairs in the hotel reception, taken more notice of the buses and where they stopped. But the truth of the matter was that she hadn’t been taking notice of anything except Brodie.
‘Où est l’arrêt de l’autobus pour Aix, s’il vous plaît?’ she murmured half a dozen times or so until the phrase rolled off her tongue without difficulty.
Satisfied, she slipped down beneath the cover and closed her eyes. The question was no problem. All she had to worry about now was whether she would understand the answer.
‘Emmy? Are you awake?’ She groaned. To anyone with half a brain it was perfectly obvious that she was fast asleep. The man was obsessed with getting up at the crack of dawn and not even the smell of fresh coffee could redeem him this time. ‘It’s nearly eight-thirty,’ he added.
Her lids flickered open. Eight-thirty? Could she have possibly heard that right? She eased herself into a sitting position, pushing her hair back from her eyes and blinked sleepily. It had been a long time before she had slept last night. ‘It can’t be,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry, I left you as long as I could, but I do want to get this over with. I’m sure you do too.’
She groaned again. Kit! Her neat little escape plan all blown out of the window because she had overslept.
Brodie, showered, shaved, dressed and ready to go, sat on the edge of the bed and handed her a cup of coffee. ‘Here, this will help,’ he said.
He was wrong, nothing would help, but she took it and sipped it anyway. ‘Thank you.’
‘Any time. There are some fresh croissants in the other room whenever you’re ready.’
Coffee, croissants, room service? ‘I thought we were supposed to eat those out on the pavement in the sun watching the world go by?’
‘Maybe tomorrow,’ he said, vaguely.
‘Tomorrow?’
‘You with Kit, perhaps. Me on some pavement café somewhere. Wherever the mood takes me.’
She gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘Not if you can help it.’
‘It’s not what I’d prefer,’ he agreed. ‘But we have a deal. If your artist is the kind of man that money can’t buy, there is nothing I can do.’ Then, ‘Honestly,’ he said, with the faintest of smiles. And it was then she noticed a slight greyness around his mouth and heaviness to his lids. She was not the only one who had had difficulty sleeping last night.
‘I believe you,’ she said, putting out an impetuous hand, but he moved before she could touch him, stood up and remembering his accusation that she was not kind, she thought she understood why.
Oh, Brodie! she thought, wistfully. Hold on. Just hold on.
‘I cannot, however, guarantee your father’s reaction,’ he continued. ‘If you stay in France he’ll have a month in which to regroup. I’ve no doubt he’ll summon Hollingworth from Scotland. Maybe he’ll even call on your Aunt Louise.’
‘Maybe he’ll ask you to “shanghai” me,’ she offered. Not that she’d need a Mickey Finn to persuade her to sail away with Brodie into the sunset. Well, maybe just to get aboard. Once at sea she was sure he would distract her from any inclination towards mal de mer.
Her attempt at levity, however, was not appreciated.
‘He could ask,’ Brodie said, stiffly, ‘but as his lawyer I’d have to inform him that it would be a criminal offence.’ Then, slightly exasperated, with her, ‘You’re an adult, Emmy, you can marry any number of fortune hunters if you want to.’
‘Always provided I remember to keep to one fortune hunter at a time,’ she said, dryly.
‘Maybe you should try telling your father that.’ He paused, but only to gather breath. ‘And while you’re telling him, maybe you should ask him whether your happiness is less important than preserving the bank full of money that your family has been handing down since time immemorial with each succeeding generation increasingly nervous that someone might cheat them out of it.’
His concern cloaked her in warmth. But it was more than just concern. There was real feeling in his eyes, in his voice. And something more. Something she suspected he would not wish her to see. She wanted so much to reach up, put her arms about him and pull him down beside her, forget about the outside world. She only hoped that when this was all over he would be able to forgive her deception. That his eyes would still burn when he looked at her.
‘Pa isn’t bad, Brodie. He just worries about me. Probably with good reason,’ she admitted. ‘He’s afraid I might turn out like my mother.’
‘Then he’s a bigger fool than I thought.’
He took the empty cup from her. He would have liked to add that it was his sincere wish that Fairfax would send Gerald Carlisle a message that would leave the man in no doubt what he should do with his money. But he couldn’t bring himself to frame a sentiment that wasn’t true. He wanted Kit Fairfax to be a snivelling miserable reprobate who’d snatch his hand off. Unfortunately, he didn’t think that likely. He didn’t think Emmy was the kind of girl to make the same mistake twice.
‘Quick as you can, Emmy,’ he urged, although why he should have to urge her to hurry to her own wedding… It wasn’t something he wanted to think about.
Emmy waited until the door closed behind him. Then she rocketed out of bed, already adjusting her plan to meet the unexpected changes thrust on her by Brodie’s thoughtfulness in letting her sleep on. She rushed into the bathroom, turning on the shower full blast, leaving it to run while she retrieved her few basic essentials from her handbag and stuffed them into her jeans pocket while she had the chance. Then she took her time about showering and dressing in jeans and a white t-shirt, the kind of clothes everyone was wearing and would not be immediately noticeable, or memorable. And she took ages putting on the minimum of make-up. Brodie was impatient to be off. The more impatient he got, the more chance she had of succeeding.
She was zipping up her bag when Brodie finally knocked. ‘How’re you doing in there, Emmy?’
‘I’m all ready.’ She opened the door and handed him her overnight bag. ‘But starving.’ She tossed her handbag onto an armchair and headed for the croissants. ‘Is there any more coffee?’ she asked, settling herself on the sofa. Brodie poured her a cup, then picked up her bag. ‘Oh, aren’t you going to have one with me?’
‘No. I’ll go and pay the bill and put the bags in the car. It’ll save time,’ he said, pointedly.
She smiled serenely, apparently oblivious of his urgency. ‘Oh, right. Good idea.’ She bit into the warm, buttery pastry. ‘Mmmm. These just don’t taste the same when you buy them in London, do they?’ she said, capturing a crumb with the tip of her finger and redirecting it towards her mouth. She was being deliberately provocative, sensing that it would drive him away more quickly than anything.
‘I wouldn’t know. I require rather more than a piece of pastry to see me through a working day.’
The minute the door closed behind him, she abandoned the croissant and crossed to the bathroom. She turned on the tap at the sink then carefully shut the bathroom door. She left the bedroom door open so that he would hear the water running and think she was in the bathroom. And she left her handbag on the chair where she had thrown it. Because every man knew that there wasn’t a woman born who could manage without her handbag.
And then she let herself out of the bedroom and hurried towards the back stairs, startling a chambermaid with a pile of towels as she rounded a corner.
‘Non, non, Madame,’ the girl said, pointing to the main staircase as she rattled out a rapid stream of French. But Emmy, an imploring look in her eyes, put her finger to her lips and gestured towards the staff stairs. The girl’s eyes widened, then Emmy saw understanding dawn. She pointed again to the back entrance of the hotel and once more the girl launched into incomprehensible French.
The French might have been beyond her, but it was obvious to Emmy that she had an ally, an ally, moreover who would know the way to the bus stop. She repeated her carefully rehearse
d question, but as she had feared, the directions were too rapid, too complicated and time was running out.
Emmy, the star of countless school plays, pointed dramatically to her watch and threw an anguished look in the direction of the main stairs. The girl, thrilled to be part of some romantic conspiracy, abandoned the towels on the hall table and lead her by the back way from the hotel, dodging the kitchen staff, taking care that she was not seen.
She took her first down a narrow lane and then around a corner where she stopped and pointed across the road to the bus stop. Emmy pressed twenty of her precious euros into the girl’s hand — her help had been worth every last euro cent of it — and ten minutes later she was on a bus headed towards Aix en Provence.
It was, she discovered from a fellow passenger, about twenty miles. Half an hour by car, give or take a few minutes for traffic. By bus it would take longer and she sincerely regretted telling Brodie which direction to take.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BRODIE was feeling absolutely bloody. He hadn’t slept, he hadn’t even tried. Instead he’d spent the night going through the file Carlisle had given him, trying to put his finger on what it was that was bothering him about this whole business. Trying, he knew, to find some damning piece of information about Kit Fairfax, some lever to use to make him back off without having to offer him money, because if he took it, Emmy would never trust another man. And he wouldn’t blame her.
But Mark Reed had found nothing about Kit Fairfax that he could use as an arm twister. No drugs, no wife in the attic, no hoard of illegitimate children. He was just one more struggling artist.
He would have like to have seen some of his pictures, got a feel for the man through his work, but there was nothing like that in the file to help him.
Emmy had visited him at his studio a couple of times a week. A couple of weeks ago she had stayed overnight. He forced himself to ignore the hot rush of jealousy that engulfed him. Emotion would cloud his judgement. He uncurled fingers that had tightened around the folder and after a few moments he continued to scan Mark Reed’s notes. Not that there was much to learn.
Emmy always went to Fairfax’s studio — he had never been observed going to her flat — and stayed for an hour or so on each occasion. They sometimes went to the local pub for a drink and a sandwich before she went home or on somewhere else with friends. Fairfax went back to his studio. That was it.
He never called her at work, or sent her flowers or behaved in any way like a besotted lover. Scarcely the whirlwind romance with which Emmy had confronted her father. Or maybe that was what he wanted to believe.
Yet Gerald Carlisle must have had some reason to put Reed onto Fairfax. He bent to pick up a piece of paper that had slipped onto the floor. It was a cutting from one of those glossy celebrity magazines and there was a picture of Emmy looking wonderfully glamorous at some charity auction. And the man beside her, who she was looking at with every appearance of stars in her eyes, was Kit Fairfax.
If he’d been asked to make a judgement, based on what was in the file, he would have said that Emmy had thrown herself at the man. If the affair was so one-sided it was possible that Fairfax would be a pushover.
He stared up at the hotel window. One girl, two days and his life would never be the same. Whatever happened.
But delaying things was not helping. He’d stowed the bags in the car, paid the bill and still Emmy hadn’t appeared. He continued to stare up at the window, unwilling to return to their suite, wishing he had told her to come down when she was ready. But there was no point in putting off the moment. He went back inside, mounting the stairs two at a time.
‘Emmy, are you ready?’ he called, as he opened the door. ‘Let’s go,’ he added, without waiting for an answer.
She wasn’t in the sitting room. The bedroom door was open and as he approached it, he heard the water running and shrugged. He returned to the sitting room, glancing around to make sure that nothing had been left behind.
There was only her handbag on the chair. A croissant with one bite missing. The cup of coffee he’d poured her gone cold. He glanced back at the bedroom, anxiety clutching suddenly at his stomach. Was she sick? The change of water, different food…
‘Emmy?’ he called. ‘Are you all right?’ When she didn’t reply he tapped at the bathroom door. ‘Emmy?’ He turned the handle, half opened the door.
And then in a flash he knew. He didn’t need to see the water trickling from the tap into the sink, or to fling back the door on the empty bathroom, to know what she had done.
He didn’t stop to turn the water off. He didn’t waste his breath on calling himself every kind of fool he could lay his tongue too. It might have made him feel marginally better for about ten seconds, but it wouldn’t help him find Emerald Carlisle.
Hurtling through the door Brodie practically bowled over the chambermaid. He grabbed her to steady her, full of apologies. Then as, blushing, she ducked away from him, he turned back. She might have seen Emmy leave the hotel by the back way, it was certainly worth asking.
‘Excusez-moi, mademoiselle,’ he began. ‘Avez-vous…?’ But she backed nervously away before he could even complete his question, jabbering nervously about how busy she was, how late is was, diving into the nearest bedroom in her anxiety to avoid him.
Such obvious panic at the thought of being asked the simplest of questions made him pause. He could have been about to ask if she had seen his car keys, or if she had some soap, or something as mundane as the time. But from her reaction it would appear she knew exactly what he had been about to ask her and that she had something to hide.
He followed her to the doorway. ‘Which way did she go?’ he asked, without further preliminaries. Then, ‘Did you lend her money?’ He took out his wallet, intending to repay her.
‘Non, non, monsieur!’ She shook her hands at him, holding him at a distance as he advanced upon her.
She was young and very nervous. Realising that he would get nowhere by scaring the girl, he explained patiently that only wished to repay her. Dumbly now, she shook her head and took out the twenty euro note to show him.
So, Emmy had had money all the time. He wondered how much. The one thing he didn’t need to ask himself was where she’d kept it hidden. Clearly babysitting Emmy Carlisle was no job for a gentleman.
‘Where was she going?’ he repeated, firmly but quietly. ‘Tell me now, or I’ll have to fetch Madame Girard.’ The prospect of interrogation by that indomitable lady was too much for the girl and she began to weep. Brodie raised his eyes to the ceiling. Heaven alone knew what Emmy had told her. Not much. Her French was not up to some elaborate tale of wife-beating or worse. Even supposing she’d had the time. But with a sigh, a gesture… He’d experienced the technique at first hand when she’d reduced him to slavery with little more than a look.
He handed the child his handkerchief and waited, curtailing his impatience with difficulty, until her sobs had subsided. Then he set about convincing her that he intended Emerald no harm.
Placing his hands gently on her shoulders he looked down at her. ‘Mademoiselle, she is in the gravest danger,’ he said, with quiet urgency, disregarding the truth. The truth was that he hadn’t the slightest idea what kind of trouble Emmy had got herself into, if any, but until he did he wasn’t going to let her off the hook. The girl’s eyes widened. ‘I have to find her before she does something foolish.’ The girl continued to stare at him. ‘I love her,’ he declared, in desperation, his hands tightening on the girl’s shoulders. ‘I love her.’ He repeated the words in the manner of a man who has just discovered some hitherto unsuspected truth. ‘I swear that I would never do anything to hurt her.’
Thirty seconds later he was reversing the car out of the parking bay and heading for Aix, while the young chambermaid was sitting on the bed she was supposed to be stripping, clutching twenty euros in each hand and with a big grin on her face as she congratulated herself on having swapped shifts with her sister.
Aix w
asn’t much of a clue. But it was a start. Once there she would undoubtedly be heading out into the country for some cottage or converted farmhouse belonging to friends. She would only have to make a quick phone call once she’d reached the town and Fairfax would come and meet her. After that, it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Halted at a junction blocked solid with traffic, he punched Mark Reed’s number into his mobile phone. ‘Mark? Tom Brodie. What have you got for me?’
‘Not a lot. None of Miss Carlisle’s friends seem to know where she was going, or if they are they’re not telling. The only lead I’ve got is a postcard sent by Fairfax to his next door neighbour telling him that things were taking longer than he anticipated and asking him to continue feeding the cat until he comes home—’
‘Things?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. The postmark is unreadable but the picture is of a painting by Cezanne of a mountain—’
‘La Montagne Sainte-Victoire?’
‘That’s it. He said on the card that it was the view from his farmhouse window.’
‘I know it. Unfortunately it’s the view from half the region. But at least we’re in the right area. All right, Mark, that’s some help.’
‘Given you the slip again has she?’ he said, not without sympathy. ‘She’s quite a girl for that. Giving you the slip in Harvey Nick’s and then waving when she gets home with her shopping. Just to let you know she knows you’re there.’
‘I’m considering handcuffs,’ Brodie said, tight-lipped.
‘Poor kid’s been in handcuffs, metaphorically speaking, ever since she was old enough to have a mind of her own. Carlisle should try trusting her for once, she’s his daughter, not his wife.’ He seemed to hesitate. ‘She’s a nice girl, Tom.’