by Clare Chase
It was at that moment that I realised I was now gazing gormlessly at Radley. What’s more she was looking right back at me. She’d been in the same cafe as the guy with the cravat, and was now emerging from the door, followed by a man. He was mature, with thick iron-grey hair, and attractive in that kind of way that successful men often are, before you pull yourself back and remember to think straight. There was a paisley silk scarf round his neck and he had the air of a man who wants for nothing.
Radley gave me an odd, quick little nod in acknowledgement, which he spotted. He glanced in my direction, and frowned for a moment, a faint look of recognition in his eyes, then turned back to Radley. As they walked swiftly past she was saying something to him, possibly telling him my name, because his look flicked back in my direction and, just for a moment, I caught his eye.
It was another five minutes before I made my own way back to work. I wracked my brains as I walked, trying to think who the man with Radley could have been. As I crossed the square to the gallery entrance, I suddenly wondered if I’d got it; he looked like the guy who’d been visiting Seb, the day I’d come in to talk to Radley, and she’d torn me off a strip about hanging out with Darrick. I remembered noticing him the foyer, because he’d been so well dressed then, too.
Back at the office, the meeting with Seb drew near and I began to feel uneasy. My evening out with Darrick was high in my mind and my guilt levels were soaring.
He smiled when he saw me outside his door and got up to usher me in. ‘How’s it going?’
‘I’ll have the package for the public gallery reps ready by five-thirty,’ I said.
‘Great. And is it shaping up okay?’
I nodded. ‘It’s pretty convincing.’
‘Wonderful.’
He spent some time telling me how to handle Henry Feldenstein, which included lots of psychological tactics, but beyond this nothing much more than a bright smile and a ready line in flattery, which was a relief. When we seemed to have come to the end of what he needed to tell me, I started to gather my things together, but he held up a hand.
‘There’s just one more thing I needed to talk to you about, on another subject.’ He paused. ‘One of our buyers from the private view was in touch this morning.’
‘Oh yes?’ I said, wondering what was coming. Seb’s expression told me they hadn’t called to arrange the purchase of a painting. I hovered by the door.
‘Funnily enough, this guy had recognised Darrick Farron.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Of course he didn’t realise he’d come in under a false name and he wanted to know what connection we had with him, and why he was here.’ He walked over to me. ‘It does back up what I was saying the other day, doesn’t it?’
I didn’t reply.
‘What I mean is,’ he went on, ‘I was right to worry that any link between us and him could harm the gallery. You do see, don’t you, Anna?’
I nodded and he rubbed my arm in that characteristic way of his.
‘Thanks. I knew you’d understand really.’
As I walked from his room I became aware that two people had been watching us. I caught Radley’s eye for a moment but, as usual, she looked away quickly. Monica Smith, on the other hand, continued to stare at me from where she was standing by the printer, without any signs of discomfiture. Her cool, appraising glance gave nothing away, and I walked back to my own office wondering what was on her mind.
I was on my way down the stairs, ready to leave for the day, when Radley caught up with me. ‘You recognised my lunch companion I expect,’ she said.
I was surprised by her question, and took a moment to answer. She took my silence as assent.
‘Professor Maxwell-Evans came in to see Seb recently,’ she said.
Maxwell-Evans. Good grief, that name was a blast from the past. And now I knew, it made sense that he’d recognised me, albeit not well enough to remember why. He’d clearly had to ask Radley to jog his memory. The professor was Seb’s old tutor: the guy who’d collected art and indulged in the odd illicit substance. He’d changed, but that wasn’t surprising given the intervening years. I certainly hadn’t put two and two together when I’d seen him going in to Seb’s office that day. But why did Radley seem so shifty?
‘He left some papers behind, so I was just returning them to him.’
‘Right,’ I said, mystified. ‘Good idea.’ And I clattered my way down the rest of the stairs and out of the door.
Chapter Twenty-Four
‘So what are you going to wear then?’ Sally was darting around my room, skipping from foot to foot as though it was her date, not mine. Her exuberance was partly explained by the arrival of a new man on her scene: someone called Jasper, who’d been regularly dropping his mother off at Farquharson’s and had spotted Sally’s lingering glances. She was going out with him on Friday night.
‘I don’t know yet,’ I said in answer to her question about clothes. I secretly wished she’d go away. ‘I haven’t had a quiet moment to think.’
She started rifling through my wardrobe, failing to take the hint. ‘Ooh, what about this?’ she said, pulling out a short, black party dress with a plunging neckline.
‘For the pub?’
‘Is that where you’re going?’
‘Well, he didn’t say, but I presume we’re not going clubbing at eight in the evening.’
‘The thing is, if he mixes with gangsters he’ll probably be used to women in dramatic dresses with guns tucked in their stocking tops.’
‘You know,’ I said, walking over and taking the dress from her, ‘you are so not helping.’ I returned it to its hanger and thrust it to the rear of the wardrobe.
‘Oh I get it,’ Sally said. ‘You want something more moderate – I mean, just in case you don’t get the chance to change your clothes before you go into work tomorrow morning …’
‘I’m going to treat that remark with the contempt that it deserves,’ I said, but Sally just gave me a naughty, knowing smile.
‘You must remember,’ I went on doggedly, ‘that this is an information gathering exercise.’ I gave her a look. ‘I shall be displaying the utmost caution.’
She raised an eyebrow that said, ‘yeah right’, as clearly as if she’d uttered the words, and I felt the excitement bubble up in my stomach again.
In the end I decided on a black top with a ruffled neckline – reasonably low, but not excessive – a funky mini skirt with huge, unnatural orange daisies embroidered onto a green background, and my long brown boots.
‘You will take care of yourself, won’t you?’ Sally said, suddenly sounding anxious. I think she felt slightly responsible for me. After all, it had been her suggestion to see Darrick again specifically to find out if there was anything dodgy about him or not.
‘Of course.’
‘And text me if you’re not planning on coming back home tonight?’
‘Sal-ly!’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh come on!’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me the thought hasn’t entered your head. Just text me, that’s all. Then I’ll know you’re staying out of choice and haven’t been bundled into the back of a black limo with mirrored windows.’
I steered her towards the door. ‘All right. I’ll text you! Now, could I please have some privacy, so I can get changed?’
Despite getting all tetchy and wanting space to myself, so I could be ready on time, I actually found I had twenty minutes to spare when I’d finished. I hovered on the stairs, wondering whether I should go down and wait in the hall, or if Sally and Alicia would laugh at me for behaving like a teenager.
At last there was a ring on the bell. They both appeared, as though they too had been listening out, but I got there ahead of them, hastily shouting my farewells and pulling the door closed behind me.
Glancing over my shoulder, I could see Sally peering out of the hall window, the curtain hitched to one side. Her nose wasn’t actually pressed to the glass, but I’d say the ti
p of it was touching.
‘Is that your cousin checking me out?’ Darrick said.
‘Oh no, that’s not Alicia,’ I said. ‘I think you’ll find she’s staring out of the dining room window.’
He looked round. ‘Oh yes, I see her.’
‘The face at the hall window is Sally,’ I said, ‘my fellow lodger.’
‘Do they always keep such a close eye on you?’
‘Only when there’s something exciting going on. You’ve achieved folk hero status thanks to what Seb said he’d found out about you.’
Darrick raised his eyebrows. ‘You’ll have to tell me all about that.’
‘That’s just what I was intending.’ I wanted to choose my moment though. Blurting it all out in the street didn’t seem like a good idea.
I had thought that Darrick coming to pick me up might mean he was in the car. Perhaps he had some special outing planned or something. In fact, it became apparent that he was on foot.
‘So what’s with the home visit?’ I asked.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘It seemed friendlier than demanding you meet me in a pub you’d probably never been to before, in a neighbourhood you might not know.’
‘But I met you in The Old Faithful.’
He shook his head. ‘A whole different ball game. That was lunchtime. Besides,’ he gave me a half smile, ‘I wanted to find out where you live.’
‘That’s not fair,’ I said lightly. ‘I don’t know where you live yet.’
He put an arm round me, pulling me in close for a moment, his fingers edging round the top of my skirt. ‘If you remember, you were invited, only you came up with some transparent excuse.’
I blushed as I recalled the scene in the backstreet near The Midnight Hour. ‘I enjoyed that evening,’ I said.
‘And so did I.’
We walked to the tube station and caught a southbound train.
‘Where exactly are we going?’ I asked, as the tube rattled through the tunnels.
‘An old haunt of mine,’ Darrick said. ‘You’ll see.’
I didn’t have long to wait. He made us get out at Chalk Farm.
The night was bitter, the sort where the air’s cold enough to make you catch your breath, and it was slightly damp and misty. ‘Is it warm, this place you’re taking me to?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘Don’t worry, we’re nearly there now.’
We walked towards Primrose Hill, and he led me down a tree-lined street, where we kicked our way through piles of leaves. Ahead of us, just to the left, was a white apartment block, built back off the road. It was a crisp series of flats with large windows and curving balconies. The gardens at the front were spacious enough to accommodate the odd cedar tree, as well as several smaller varieties besides.
‘Here’s the old haunt I was mentioning,’ Darrick said.
‘It looks modern, not old,’ I said, giving him a sharp look from under the lamppost where I had paused. ‘And it’s not quite the restaurant or pub I was expecting.’
But as I finished my sentence he put an arm round my shoulders and began steering me up the drive. ‘I thought you wanted to see my place,’ he said. ‘And besides, if we’re going to talk about gangsters it’s only really safe to do it somewhere where we won’t be overheard.’
I pulled away but he took my arm and propelled me forwards again. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I’ve got steak, chips, mushrooms and onions all ready to cook. And a really good bottle of red.’
‘Oh well, that’s different then.’
‘I knew you’d see sense.’
Darrick’s flat was quite something. It was on two levels and the inside was painted white. Downstairs there was an extensive living area stretching from a kitchen at one end, through a dining section to a wide seating area beyond, with a balcony. There were a couple of doors off the hallway that I guessed led to a cloakroom and maybe a broom cupboard or something like that. Upstairs … well I didn’t know anything about upstairs, except that there was one. Leading up to it was a substantial moulded spiral staircase, also in white, arcing majestically towards the ceiling.
‘It’s an amazing place,’ I said, as Darrick took my coat. ‘I’m guessing working for gangsters pays all right then.’
‘Is that what Seb told you?’
‘It’s what he implied. He didn’t actually say gangsters. I think he used words like ruthless and muttered things about operating outside the law.’
Darrick hung up our coats – I’d been right about the cupboard – and walked towards the kitchen range. ‘Tell me exactly what’s happened since I saw you last then,’ he said, opening a bottle of wine and reaching down glasses from a high shelf to the left of the dining table.
So I went through everything, starting with Seb’s job offer and going through to what he’d said about the sort of people Darrick worked for, and the effect he’d be likely to have on potential buyers at the gallery.
Darrick was getting the steak out of the fridge; he’d prepared everything so it was ready to go. He looked thoughtful as he heated the oil for the chips.
I took a sip of my wine. ‘Can I do anything?’
He shook his head. ‘Everything’s under control.’ He turned to look at me and smiled as he flipped the steaks over.
He didn’t seem to be about to volunteer anything, so I plunged in. ‘So what is the truth about your work? I presume you knew I’d assumed you were a journalist.’ It was only as I said it that I realised how angry I was.
He gave me a look and a half smile that told me he’d been well aware I’d been deceived. ‘Did you really? Sorry about that.’
I took a deep breath. ‘So what is it that you do do, exactly?’ I asked.
‘I assumed Seb had filled in all the details.’
‘He said you tracked down stolen works of art, that kind of thing.’
‘And he portrayed that as being pretty much unacceptable in his world?’
‘He said you used brutal methods to achieve your goals.’ I sighed. ‘In any case, you’ve got to be fair, Darrick. You can see his point of view. He doesn’t want some rich buyer who left the proceeds from a mediocre watercolour off his tax return to be frightened away by you. I’m quite sure he supports everything you do in principle.’
Darrick turned off the heat and lifted out the chips, dishing our portions onto large, white plates. ‘Do you know how hollow that sounds?’ he said. It was his turn to fight to control his temper. His blue eyes were blazing, though he kept his voice level. As he put the plates on the table he said, ‘You have to live according to what you believe, Anna. If you operate by Seb’s rules you’re giving in just to make a fast buck.’
‘We all have to earn our keep,’ I said, making a show of sweeping my eyes over the palatial surroundings.
‘I’m not ashamed that what I do pays well. It’s a tough job and it can be dangerous. I get called off to God knows where at a moment’s notice and half the time I’m not allowed to tell anyone what I’m working on. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to take a decent wage.’ He took a large slug of wine.
‘And what about the people you work for?’
‘I’d never do a job for someone I didn’t respect, and I’m quite at ease with the methods I use.’
We sat in silence for a moment. My food steamed in front of me. Suddenly Darrick laughed. ‘For God’s sake, Anna, we seem to be making a habit of this. Eat!’
So we ate and drank and talked about Primrose Hill and Hampstead and films and music, just as any other couple might.
I couldn’t leave the subject of Darrick’s work altogether though. I felt there was more to discuss. Finally, when we’d finished and were sitting over glasses of brandy, I asked, ‘Why weren’t you more explicit about your job? It did feel as though you were deliberately misleading me.’
‘The reason’s going to be a lot more prosaic than you imagine,’ he said. ‘It’s quite simply that my work isn’t that much of an asset when it comes to relationships.’
‘Oh!’ I sai
d. That put a slightly different complexion on things. ‘What, you mean because you get called away at short notice and things like that?’
He nodded.
‘So there wasn’t anything underhand about it after all?’
Darrick looked at me across the table. ‘It was about as underhand as you can get, as moves go. I was hoping that if you got to know me first, before you found out about my career-related shortcomings, I might have a chance of conning you into seeing more of me.’
After we’d finished our drinks Darrick stood up, and I automatically followed him across the room. He turned to face me, looking straight into my eyes. I found myself oblivious to everything else around us, losing myself in his gaze.
‘So Seb forbade you from seeing me whilst you’re working for him?’
‘That’s what it amounts to.’
‘What are you doing here then?’ he said.
‘I think it’s possible that physical instincts have led to a lapse in judgment.’
‘That’s very much what I was hoping,’ he said, leaning forward.
Every fibre in my body seemed to strain towards him, waiting for him to touch me. Then in a moment he was pulling me to him, kissing me hard on the mouth, slipping a hand under my top. A sparking, shivering sensation crackled down through my body. What followed was intense, ungentle and exhilarating.
It was quite a while later that I realised I hadn’t texted Sally to alert her to my loose behaviour. Darrick shifted slightly in his sleep as I sneaked out of bed to go to the bathroom where I could see what I was doing without waking him up.
When I got back in again he was stirring. ‘Okay?’
I nodded and explained that, given the gangster connections, Sally had insisted I let her know I was okay if I decided to stay out.
He laughed and lay behind me, stroking me softly. ‘So have you thought any more about Seb’s ultimatum?’ he said into the darkness.
In fact, I realised now I’d been seeing it as something that could be ignored – at least for a while. But perhaps it couldn’t. Perhaps Darrick wouldn’t carry on seeing me if I was effectively treating him as a secret that could be kept at my convenience.