Deception and Desire

by Janet Tanner

  ‘So you keep saying. I’m afraid I fail to see what all the fuss is about. Rosalie does her own thing. She always has.’

  ‘Not to this extent. Even Mike doesn’t know where she is.’

  Dulcie sniffed eloquently. ‘The PE teacher, you mean. I expect Rosalie has found someone more suitable. I never did think he was her style. Even Brendan, unfortunately as he turned out, had more about him. He was a radio personality after all. But a PE teacher at that dreadful school …’

  ‘Has she ever mentioned anyone else to you?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Good heavens, no!’ Dulcie sipped her coffee elegantly. ‘There was that Vandina man, of course. She used to talk about him rather often. But that was some time ago now.’

  ‘What Vandina man?’

  ‘The main one – Van something. He sounded foreign. But I think he’s dead now. Rather a pity – he would have made a good match for Ros.’

  ‘If you mean Van Kendrick, he was already married.’

  ‘Was he? Oh well, that doesn’t seem to stop young people nowadays.’

  ‘He was her boss,’ Maggie said. ‘Nothing more.’

  ‘If you say so, dear. Personally I think there was more to it than that.’

  ‘Mother, you know how fanatical Ros is about her work,’ Maggie said, irritated. ‘ Van Kendrick’s name would have been bound to crop up in conversation.’

  Dulcie shrugged. ‘ Well, since he’s dead I suppose it’s all academic anyway. And you are right about Ros being fanatical where work is concerned. I really don’t know where her drive comes from!’

  Not from you, that’s for sure, Maggie thought crossly.

  ‘Has Ros seen Brendan recently, do you know?’ she asked, changing tack.

  ‘Not that I know of. I was saying the other day, we never hear Brendan on the wireless these days. Do you know why that is?’

  ‘I think he lost his job, Mother.’

  ‘Lazy toad,’ the Colonel interjected.

  ‘I beg your pardon, dear?’

  ‘His name came up at the Rotary lunch a couple of weeks ago. Old Forsythe said he’d applied to them for a job. Naturally he didn’t get it. With a reputation like his they wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole.’

  Alan Forsythe, a fellow Rotarian, was a leading light in the local commercial radio station.

  ‘You didn’t tell me that!’ Dulcie said, piqued.

  ‘Didn’t want to upset you, old girl. Thought it better not to, in view of the things that were being said about him.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Oh, gone completely off the rails. Forsythe thought he’d gone a bit batty, due to drink probably. Said he was quite irrational and seemed to be going blank-o. Had trouble remembering his own name, according to Forsythe.’

  ‘Oh surely not!’

  ‘Well, you know what I mean. Seen it in the army when a fellow drinks too much – he loses himself. Alcohol destroys the brain cells. It’ll be his liver next, mark my words. He’ll be dead of cirrhosis before he’s forty.’

  ‘Oh dear, I do hope not! Perhaps Rosalie is better off without him.’

  ‘Believe you me, she is.’

  ‘He did behave very badly towards Rosalie,’ Dulcie conceded. For a moment she was lost in thought, her butterfly brain working overtime as she put together, for the first time, unpleasant and conveniently forgotten happenings from the past with the more ominous aspects of the present situation. ‘You don’t think he has harmed Rosalie in some way, do you?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘I don’t know, Mother,’ Maggie said. ‘ But I think he could be capable of it.’

  ‘Oh my goodness! Do you suppose we should go to the police?’

  ‘We already have – remember?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course – they came here. But do they know about Brendan? Perhaps you should phone them, Harry, tell them what sort of man he is. If you were to mention Alan Forsythe’s name, tell them what he knows about him, they would surely take notice.’

  ‘All Forsythe said was that he is useless these days as a broadcaster. There’s no law against that, unfortunately,’ the Colonel replied testily. ‘Don’t upset yourself, my dear. What are you thinking of, Margaret, frightening your mother in this way.’

  ‘But if Rosalie …’

  ‘Harry’s right, Mother,’ Maggie said. ‘There’s nothing new you can tell the police. They seem convinced Ros has gone off of her own accord – just as you were. There’s no point getting yourself into a state. There could be any number of explanations for her disappearance.’

  Dulcie thought again for a few moments, then brightened.

  ‘You’re right. Let’s put it out of our minds and talk about something different. Goodness knows, we see you so seldom, we don’t want to spoil it by being morbid!’

  Her short concentration span exhausted and her ability to shut out anything which might trouble her reasserting itself, Dulcie steered the conversation towards the mundane and the frivolous and, most of all, to herself. When Maggie left, midway through the afternoon, Ros had not been mentioned again.

  Driving back to Bristol Maggie tried to convince herself that her mother was right to refuse to be worried. In all probability there was a perfectly rational explanation for Ros’s disappearance which she and Mike had refused to acknowledge because it did not suit them to. Dreadful as it was to imagine that something horrific had happened to her, at least it left the image of the Ros they loved intact. But if she had run off with someone else or if she was, as Jayne had suggested, the Vandina mole, taking the salary of one employer whilst actually working for another, and betraying the trust placed in her, then she immediately became a different person, someone Maggie did not know at all. Dulcie, however, looked at it in quite a different light. She could, it seemed, happily accept Ros for whatever she was in the most simplistic way.

  Back at the cottage Maggie parked the car, wondering what to do next. The feeling of helplessness and utter frustration was beginning to get to her. She had seen all the people who might be able to help and had come up with nothing. And Ros was still missing.

  There was an official-looking envelope addressed to Ros in the mail basket; Maggie took it into the kitchen, tearing it open as she went. She had no qualms now about opening Ros’s mail – if she turned up safe and well and was angry about the invasion of her privacy so be it. In the meantime Maggie was anxious to learn everything she could about her sister’s life in the search for a clue. On this occasion, however, when she realised that the envelope contained a bank statement she did wonder momentarily whether she was going too far by prying into Ros’s finances. But she cast her eye down the statement all the same, noting Ros’s healthy bank balance, the input of her substantial salary and a number of large standing orders – her mortgage repayment, insurance premiums and a budget account transfer. Then, somewhere at the back of her mind, alarm bells began to jangle and she ran her eye once again down the column of outgoings.

  The statement was a bi-monthly one and in the early weeks regular withdrawals had been made using a cashpoint card. But towards the latter part of the statement there were no such withdrawals. Maggie traced the date of the last one – two days before Ros had disappeared. After that – nothing. The only recent outgoings were a few standing orders and a couple of cheques which obviously pre-dated her disappearance.

  Maggie felt sick with sudden dread. Surely if Ros had gone away she would have needed cash by now? The final withdrawal was not a particularly large one – the same fifty pounds that Ros apparently took out for spending money every week. And there were no recent cheques or Switch transactions either, nothing to indicate that she had paid hotel or restaurant bills, nothing to cover a train fare from Bristol to anywhere.

  It was possible, of course, that if she was with someone then it was he who was picking up the bills. But Ros was nothing if not independent – she liked to pay her own way. Then again, perhaps she was using Access or Visa, but there was no large payment in the statement wh
ich might indicate a credit card bill. And in any case surely she would need cash, to make small everyday purchases if nothing else.

  Maggie’s feeling of foreboding deepened. She glanced at her watch. Mike should be home from school by now – unless he had another cricket match. She went back into the hall, but before she could pick up the telephone it began ringing. Telepathy, she thought. Mike is ringing me. She snatched it up.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Maggie? It’s Steve Lomax.’

  For a moment, her mind elsewhere, she couldn’t think who Steve Lomax was. Then she remembered.

  ‘Steve. Hello.’ It was difficult to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  ‘I was wondering if perhaps I could take you out for a drink this evening.’

  ‘This evening?’ She was thinking quickly. She had hoped to see Mike this evening, but Steve was a definite link with Ros, a contact with Vandina. If Brendan had nothing to do with Ros’s disappearance then something connected with Vandina offered the only other real possibility.

  ‘Perhaps you already have other arrangements,’ he was saying smoothly.

  ‘No … no, I haven’t any plans for tonight.’

  ‘Then can I persuade you to spend it with me?’

  ‘All right. Why not?’

  ‘Good! Shall I pick you up? Say about eight?’

  ‘Fine. I’ll look forward to it.’

  She put the phone down, then picked it up again and dialled Mike’s number. But it was only his answering machine.

  ‘I need to speak to you,’ she said. ‘ I shall be going out at about eight. Perhaps if you get in before then you could call me.’

  She replaced the receiver, and only then did she realise she was trembling.

  ‘So – what was all that about, darling?’

  Steve Lomax replaced the telephone receiver and swung his blue leather swivel chair around to see Jayne Peters-Browne standing in the doorway of his office.

  Her pose was studiedly sultry – and striking – one hand raised against the door jamb so that the creamy silk of her blouse strained over her full breasts, one hip thrust provocatively forward, but instead of the usual rush of desire he felt only irritation.

  As a lover Jayne was matchless; he did not think he had ever known a woman with more to offer. He liked her voraciousness; the fact that she was totally uninhibited was a sensual turn-on. Making love to her was like making love to an active volcano, stimulating, satisfying and somehow darkly dangerous. But the fact that he took her to bed did not give her the right to invade the other areas of his life. It didn’t mean she had any claims on him – and it certainly did not mean she could walk into his office uninvited and quiz him on private telephone calls she might overhear.

  ‘Did you want something?’ he asked coolly.

  For a moment she looked slightly nonplussed. Then her expression hardened, green eyes sharp, full lips taking on a downward droop.

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact I did. I wanted to ask you about the plans Dinah has to reverse the Reubens déb ‚cle.’

  He leaned back in his chair, eyeing her narrowly. ‘Why?’

  Again he caught her uncomfortable reaction to his curt reply and suppressed a smile; Jayne was becoming transparent, he thought. She was displaying the first signs of the vulnerability that comes with emotional involvement. But again she recovered herself so quickly that he almost wondered if her momentary discomfiture had existed only in his imagination.

  ‘You’re awfully grouchy this morning, darling. What’s the matter,?’

  ‘There is a door to my office, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’d appreciate it if you’d knock on it like any other employee.’

  This time her response was a quick blaze of anger.

  ‘But I am not any employee!’

  ‘During business hours you most certainly are.’

  ‘I disagree. Leaving our personal relationship out of it – though to be honest I don’t see why I should – I would remind you that I am the senior designer with this company. I didn’t realise I had to make an appointment to see you.’

  ‘There’s no need to be facetious, Jayne. All I’m asking is that you don’t come barging in when I am on the telephone. I think I have a right to my privacy.’

  Her eyes blazed. He was fairly certain she had heard enough to know he had been making a date with another woman, and for a moment he thought she was going to confront him with it. But if this was so, she obviously thought better of it.

  ‘All right, Mr Lomax,’ she said pointedly. ‘ Would you like me to go out and come in again so that we can begin our conversation on a more sensible basis?’

  He swivelled his chair back to face his desk. Desire for her was beginning to stir again. She really was very attractive when she was angry. But he had no intention of letting her see it. ‘Treat ’em mean, keep ’ em keen’ the old saying went. Steve was a great believer in it.

  ‘There won’t be any need for that – as long as it doesn’t happen again. Come in, sit down. Now, what was it you were asking me?’

  ‘I was asking about Dinah’s plans. I can’t do my job properly if I don’t know what she has in mind.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t enlighten you. You’ll have to talk to Dinah about that.’

  ‘Dinah is in London today. I need to know immediately what she has in mind. If we intend to put a whole new line into production in the spring there is no time to be wasted.’

  ‘I don’t think one day will make much difference,’ Steve said easily. ‘And in any case I don’t believe it will concern you. As far as I can gather – and I have to say at this point that I am almost as much in the dark as you are since it was sprung on me, too, last night – as far as I can gather Dinah is dealing with the design and development of her idea herself.’

  ‘But Don Kennedy explicitly said he wanted me in on it!’

  ‘That’s not quite what he said. He suggested your opinion would be of value. But it’s not for Don to interfere in the design side. He’s the money man, pure and simple. Dinah has the last word on the way things are done.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’ Jayne fumed. ‘ I was hired as chief designer. I have a right!’

  Steve felt his desire stir again. He had a brief erotic fantasy in which he threw her, spreadeagled, across his desk and made love to her among the files and correspondence. But he exercised an iron control which hid from her any inkling of what he was feeling.

  ‘Perhaps I should remind you, Jayne, that whatever the terms of your contract, my mother is Vandina. The original idea was hers, the early designs were hers and hers alone. She built this company from nothing and if she wants to take complete control of her new project then neither you nor anyone else is going to stop her. What is more, you certainly do not have the right to interfere.’

  ‘I understood she no longer had the time to design and that was why she needed me. She can’t do everything, and she has the company to run …’

  ‘I have been able to take some of that load off her shoulders and I shall be taking more and more, leaving Dinah free to do what she is best at – design projects.’

  ‘Do I detect a heavy-handed hint here?’ Jayne demanded. ‘Is my position being undermined?’

  He shrugged, ‘That’s not for me to say. But if you don’t like the way things are, well – you know what to do, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this!’

  He smiled; he was enjoying himself.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it. You’d be unlikely to be without a job for long. You’re good at what you do, I admit it. Other companies would be queuing up for your services. And Reubens would be top of the list, I am sure.’

  He saw the furious colour rise in her cheeks and almost laughed aloud. He’d gone too far, probably; if Jayne did take him at his word and leave he knew Dinah would not be best pleased. But he was fairly certain Jayne would not leave. There was too much to keep her at Vandina.

  ‘Right,’ he said, cha
nging his tone now that he had demonstrated his mastery. ‘ I’ll tell Dinah you’d like to be copied in on the new plans, though I’m quite sure she intended to discuss them with you anyway. She’ll be back in the office tomorrow and the designs will come with her. Dinah refuses to be parted from her brainchildren for even a moment, I’m sure you know that.’

  Jayne did not answer. He could see she was still fuming.

  ‘And about us … give me an hour to do some work, then come back – if you like,’ he said. ‘The boardroom is empty and there’s a key in the door. I don’t think we’ve ever made love there, have we?’

  She had been on the point of leaving. In the doorway she swung round. ‘Steve – fuck off!’ she said.

  But she returned an hour later anyway, just as he had known she would. He took her to the boardroom, locked the door behind them and adjusted the Venetian blinds to make it impossible to see in from outside. Then he made love to her, not once, but twice, on the dark-blue carpeted floor, and the spat that had taken place earlier only added spice to the encounter.

  ‘The perfect end to a busy day,’ he said after the first time.

  Jayne was sitting up, buttoning her silky blouse.

  ‘Busy doing what?’

  ‘Checking files. Trying to discover the identity of the Vandina mole.’

  ‘And did you find anything?’

  ‘Not yet. But I will … I will.’

  ‘I still think Ros is the prime suspect.’

  ‘Do you? Oh, I’m not so sure.’

  And then, with his typically insatiable appetite, he reached for her again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Maggie was in the shower when the telephone rang, and at first she did not hear it over the rushing of the water. When she turned the flow off and realised it was ringing she dived for a towel and rushed dripping downstairs, afraid that whoever was on the other end might give up and ring off before she could answer it.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Maggie? It’s Mike. I found your message when I got home.’

  ‘Mike.’ She felt weak with relief. ‘ Thank goodness! I was beginning to think you’d disappeared too! I tried to get you last night as well but you were out.’