Life was rosy for O’Shaughnessy. He had his trip to Salzburg to look forward to now. Gussie had rung only an hour ago to say everything was arranged from flights to accommodation. All O’Shaughnessy had to do was get his ass over there on Monday morning, trail Sharon Laide and take a few shots of whatever she was up to. Obviously Jason’s old lady had angered her old man. Foolish woman. Jason was a good boss but a very dangerous enemy.
Chapter 22
There was no waking-up process for Ella. One moment she was in a deep exhausted sleep, the next she was awake, fully aware that she was in Seaview Hotel outside Cuanowen and that she had almost drowned last evening. The room was exactly as it had been yesterday morning. The same white light, the same dressing table and wardrobe, the same rumble of tide in the background. Yet Ella perceived it differently. She saw dust motes swirl in the light, felt the texture of the pillow underneath her head, heard the hissing curl of the waves in the tidal din. It was as if her senses too had woken from a long sleep. So long. Over a year.
Someone tapped on her door. Ella pulled the duvet up around her chin and called “Come in!”.
Mrs Langford, proprietor of Seaview Hotel popped her silver-haired head around the door.
“Just checking that you are alright, dear. You gave us all rather a fright last night.”
“I’m fine, thank you.” Ella smiled. “I’m so grateful to you for all your help, Mrs Langford.”
The older woman’s rings glinted in the light as she waved her hand dismissively. “Not at all, dear. I just called a doctor for you. Gavin Shorten was the hero of the hour.”
Ella nodded. How would she ever be able to thank Pebbles? If he had not noticed that her car was parked a long time outside his office, if he had not guessed she had gone to the strand, if he did not have access to a boat . . . She shivered.
“Yes, indeed. I was very lucky and Gavin was very brave.”
“Actually, he’s in reception at the moment, Mrs Ford. I just popped in to let you know and to ask if you would like breakfast in your room.”
Ella threw back the duvet and jumped out of bed. Her toes curled as they savoured the softness of carpet under her bare feet. She was awake and gloriously aware. She was alive! She smiled at Mrs Langford, seeing beyond the make-up too heavily applied and the staggering amount of jewellery. It was the kind eyes and the prim little mouth that could never utter a harsh word on which Ella focused.
“Thank you so much, Mrs Langford, but I’ll take breakfast in the dining room. Perhaps you would ask Pebbles, sorry, Gavin, to join me, please?”
The old lady nodded in approval. Beryl Langford respected the spirit of get-up-and-go. It had been her yardstick in life. It was what gave her the strength to run her little seaside hotel alone now that her husband Archie had passed on. She gently closed the door of Ella’s room and went to reception to talk to Gavin.
When Ella entered the dining room, Gavin was already seated at a little round table which fitted snugly into the bay window. His back to the door, he was looking out over the sea. Ella walked up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Gavin, how can I thank you enough? You saved my life.”
He blushed, mumbling something in an embarrassed undertone which Ella did not catch. She stooped to kiss him on the cheek at the very moment he raised his head to look at her. Their noses clashed and they both laughed.
“We never did get that right, did we?” Gavin said.
Ella smiled her agreement as she took a chair opposite him.
“How are you feeling this morning, Ella? Any after-effects?”
She leaned towards him and her eyes were intense, sparkling. “I feel great. Better than I have for a long time.” She hesitated a moment before adding, “I haven’t been well for a while. I had an accident, a car crash, over a year ago. It has been a difficult time.”
“What in the hell were you doing out on the Dog Rock? Didn’t you know the tide was coming in?”
Before she could answer, a waitress arrived in with heaps of toast and a pot of tea and coffee. She fussed around, offering cereals and fruit juice and taking orders for the ubiquitous full Irish breakfast.
“Well?” Gavin prompted when the girl had hurried off towards the kitchen.
Ella thought back over yesterday evening and remembered her sadness and guilt after her visit to her parents’ grave.
“I had a lot to think about. Dog Rock seemed like a good place to do my thinking. The tide was well out. Then I fell asleep.”
“Jesus! Sitting on a rock, the tide coming in around you and you fell asleep! The city must have affected your brain, Ella.”
Ella frowned. Wise words indeed. The city had affected her brain, her heart, her very soul. She had found there the identity she had craved. Ella Ford was a successful businesswoman, married to a handsome man, living in a fine house in a good area. She had achieved everything she had gone there to find. Money, respect, security. So why did she feel so empty? Why had she used the excuse of her accident to withdraw from the things she had convinced herself she held so dear? Peering over her shoulder, she looked out to sea. It was sparkling in the morning sun. Smooth, beautiful, inviting, its icy death-inducing coldness now hidden.
“I’m sorry,” Gavin muttered. “That was a bit churlish of me.”
He was blushing again. Ella reached across for his hand and squeezed it. “You’re right, Gavin. The city has changed me and I don’t really like the person I’ve become. I’ve a lot more thinking to do.”
“Not on Dog Rock, I hope!”
Ella laughed with Gavin but inside she was not laughing. She was making a solemn vow to herself. Whatever happened in the future, whichever painful decisions she had to reach, she would never ever allow herself to reach the depths of despair and self-pity that had led her to almost lose her life on Dog Rock.
* * *
Maxine’s hair was fanned out over the pillow and her face was even more beautiful in sleep. She looked younger. Vulnerable. Andrew stayed perfectly still, just watching as she slept, noticing how her dark eyelashes curled, how her breasts rose and fell with her soft breathing.
He tried to imagine what she had looked like as a fifteen-year-old. Probably as beautiful as she was now but less sophisticated. He felt his face flush with anger as he thought of what she had told him. What kind of low-down criminal could have used her like that? The bastard should be locked up. Worse. He should be tortured, his nails dragged off with a pliers. One by one. He should suffer the agonies of the damned. Andrew realised his fingers had clenched into fists. He loosened them out. Rage was not going to help Maxine. She was determined not to tell him that man’s name, that animal’s name, but he would find out. Sometime. Somehow.
Maxine stirred. Her eyelids fluttered open and Andrew was struck yet again by the blueness of her eyes. They were cornflowers and deep lakes, Mediterranean skies and violets. She smiled at him and he kissed her softly on her lips. Her hands slipped around his neck and pulled him close to her.
“Do you hate me now?” she whispered into his neck.
“I hate him,” Andrew replied with vengeance. “I wish you’d tell me who he was and I’d soon have him under lock and key.”
Maxine pulled abruptly away from him and sat up, panic in her staring eyes. “You must promise me that you’ll stay out of this. He’s a dangerous man and a powerful one too. He could hurt you, Andrew. Physically and in your business. Please promise me.”
“But what he did, what he’s doing is illegal! He shouldn’t get away with it.”
“Don’t you think I know that? But what I did was disgusting. He didn’t force me. I wasn’t beaten or kidnapped. I did it to try and escape my family and Mountain View Terrace. And I have continued to do what he has asked of me. Because I wanted to protect my career. I must take responsibility too.”
“You were only fifteen then. And now you’re being blackmailed.”
Maxine flopped back against her pillow. Her smile tinged with bitternes
s. “I’m no longer making excuses for myself and I don’t want you to either. I must solve this alone. Try to earn back my self-respect. Get revenge. And I think I know how to do it.”
Andrew looked at the stubborn set of her mouth and knew any further discussion of this topic would be pointless.
“Are you still interested in buying Manor House?” he asked. When she nodded he told her he had passed on her offer to Rob Trevor. “He didn’t seem too enthusiastic. Of course he has the other offer in already. From Jason Laide. You know that.”
“We’ll talk about it again when I come back from Amsterdam,” Maxine said and it seemed that another subject was closed.
Looking at his watch Andrew was surprised to see that the morning was already half over. They had slept late.
“What time is Ella due back?” Maxine asked.
A cold shiver rippled down Andrew’s spine. Ella. His wife. Mrs Ford. The depressed and traumatised Ella. How was he going to tell her he no longer loved her? That maybe he never had. What was going to happen about the business, the house, the investments they shared? A cordial agreement or years of wrangling in family courts? Whatever happened he was sure of one thing. He loved Maxine Doran, also known as Marie Murphy, with a passion so deep that it would not be denied. He did not care what had happened in her past, how many men, or even women, she had slept with. He would be fair to Ella, give her the share of the wealth she had helped create but his future, all the rest of his life belonged to the beautiful woman who now lay beside him.
“Don’t ever leave me, Max,” he whispered.
In reply Maxine covered his lips with hers. It was lunchtime before they came downstairs.
* * *
Even though the Junkergasse house was centrally heated Sharon could always sense a slight drop in temperature when it was snowing outside. More than that, she had developed an ear for listening to the quietness of snow. It was a stillness more than an absence of sound. Without looking out the window now she knew the city of Salzburg would be deeply carpeted in a thick snowfall. Too early yet on this Sunday morning to have tyre tracks or footprints ruin the pristine whiteness.
Sharon slipped quietly from the bed even though Jason would not have noticed if she had put on hobnailed boots and trampled all over the bedroom. She leaned over him, worried now that maybe she had given him too much sedative last night. He was pale but then Jason always had that pasty white complexion which evoked days and nights spent in smoke-filled rooms. Misspent days and nights. His breathing was quiet and even.
Wrapping her warm robe tightly about her, Sharon left her husband to his drug-induced sleep and padded down to the kitchen. Frau Henner was standing by the sink, her back to the door. Her shoulders were tense, raised closer to her neat grey hair than usual. Sharon sighed. Now she was going to have to deal with Frieda’s disapproval as well as everything else.
“Morning, Frieda,” she said as she went to the percolator and poured herself a mug of coffee. Frau Henner was the only person Sharon knew whose moods were reflected in her back. The face would be impassive. Non-judgemental. The back was furious.
“Guten Morgen,” she muttered as she continued vigorously scrubbing the pot she had in the sink. At the rate she was wielding the pot scrub she would shortly rub a hole in the saucepan.
Sharon sat at the table with her coffee and waited for the storm to break. It was a short wait. Saucepan in hand, Frieda swung around to face her employer.
“I do not approve of drugging people,” she said in the precise English she always used when she was angry. “And I do not like being drawn into your deceptions. You are just building up a house of lies. It’s all going to tumble down and you are going to get crushed underneath. And not just you –”
“I know, Frieda, I know,” Sharon interrupted. “But it’s almost at an end. If everything works according to plan, we’ll soon be free of Jason Laide. I’m very sorry to involve you in all this. Your family too.”
The saucepan landed on the draining board with a bang. Frau Henner dried her hands and walked over to the table. Sitting opposite Sharon she fixed her with a sympathetic gaze.
“I know why you are doing this, Sharon. I don’t mind pretending to be nothing more than a housekeeper but . . .”
Sharon’s hand shot out and she grabbed the older woman’s damp fingers. “You’re so much more, Frieda. I couldn’t manage without you.”
“I know that. Your husband doesn’t. He has no idea of my role here and for the first time, Sharon, I’m starting to believe that he should.”
“No, no and no! I can’t tell him. You know how dangerous he can be!”
“Then why are you are still married to him? I could accept it at first but since I’ve got to know him – well, I don’t understand any more why you are still his wife.”
Sharon bowed her head. Frieda was right of course. Especially now, since she finally knew what Jason had in those envelopes she had so obligingly stored for him. The filth and cruelty. The downright evil.
“It’s not entirely your decision, is it?” Frieda asked. “Other people have rights. Your husband for one. And don’t look at me like that! Of course he should be told. What if he finds out? I’m amazed you have got away with it for so long.”
Sharon raised her head now and looked at Frieda. “I suppose I hoped for a long time that things might change. Then I could have shared everything with him.”
Frieda snorted. “What is it they say about a leopard changing its spots? You’re an intelligent woman. How could you ever have believed that your husband would change? You fooled yourself. ”
Sharon stood and walked to the door. With her head to one side she listened carefully for any sounds from upstairs. There were none. She closed the door and went back to her place at the table.
Leaning towards Frieda, she whispered. “I’ll tell him as soon as the house deal on Manor is through.”
“And why do you have to wait for yet another house?”
Sharon was asking herself the same question. Why should she wait for Manor House to be signed, sealed and delivered? Because, of course, half the property would be hers. Security. The payoff for the years she had stayed married to Jason, all the time building up the property portfolio. And what did that make her? There was a name for women like her, wasn’t there? Tears sprang into her eyes as she looked across at Frieda Henner. The only person in the world she really trusted.
“We’ll need all the money we can get to protect ourselves, Frieda. Our safety will come at a high price.”
The kitchen door burst open and Jason appeared in the doorway, barefoot and still groggy-looking.
“What in the fuck did you give me to drink last night, Sharon? I have a shit of a hangover!”
“Sturm,” Sharon replied without blinking an eye. “It’s new wine, semi-fermented. An Austrian speciality. It has some kick, hasn’t it?”
Sharon was proud of her lie until she saw the look of disgust on Frau Henner’s face. She looked away from Frieda and then poured coffee for Jason. While he was drinking it she went and got him some paracetamol. Then she massaged his shoulders. She would have done anything at that moment to make him feel well enough to catch his flight back to Ireland.
“How am I going to fly with my head throbbing like this?” he asked.
Sharon redoubled her efforts on the shoulder massage.
He glared at Frau Henner and nodded towards the door. When she had left the kitchen, he turned to his wife.
“Now, Sharon. No more fucking around. When are you coming home? And by home I mean back to Ireland.”
“I’ll be back some time next week. I have a few things to organise here first,” Sharon said and gave his shoulders one last pat.
His hand clamped onto hers like a vice. He dragged her around to face him, his eyes blazing in his pale face. His hand slipped up along her arm and came to rest at her throat, exactly over the bruises he had left there yesterday.
“You’d better have my business papers wi
th you. The ones you stole from me. Do you hear me?”
“Y-yes. I-I’ll have to go to Switzerland and collect them before I come home.”
“You wouldn’t try to trick me, Shar, would you?”
She shook her head, unable to squeeze any word past her constricted gullet.
“’Cause if you did, I’d kill you. You know that, don’t you?”
She nodded more vigorously this time.
“So get back my fucking property! Don’t give me any more bullshit about keeping it safe for me. Understand?”
He let her go then and laughed into her face. She knew she was paler than him now. Rubbing her throat she staggered back from his reach and then reeled up the stairs. Frau Henner met her on the landing and gave a quick, consoling hug.
In less than two hours Sharon had brought Jason to Salzburg Airport and stood watching as he went through into the boarding area. She waited until there was no more sign of him in the queue, then exhaled a shuddering breath. But it was not a sigh of relief or triumph. Not yet. She had a lot to organise before she could catch a plane for Ireland. Before she could set herself free.
Chapter 23
Maxine’s flight to Amsterdam was at six o’clock on Monday morning. Andrew insisted on driving her to the airport. It was still dark when he went to her apartment block to collect her. There was an awkwardness between them.
“Did Ella get home all right last night?” Maxine asked when what she really wanted to know was if there had been a reconciliation between husband and wife.
“Yes. It was very late though. She left it until the last minute to drive back from Cuanowen,” Andrew replied when what he really wanted to say was that he had not yet told Ella he was going to leave her.
The unasked questions hung in the air. They were silent as they left the city behind and headed towards the airport. Then suddenly, as if both were responding to the same signal they spoke together.
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