(2012) Evie Undercover

by Liz Harris

  Rachel looked anxiously at Tom. ‘What do you think is going to happen about what the paper claimed?’

  ‘The worst of the two attacks is, of course, the Zizi thing. Pure Dirt will probably go to the Court of Appeal and claim that Zizi having a candlelight dinner during the course of the trial with her barrister, who’d already been shown to be dishonest, is enough to suggest that their other claims could be true. They’ll say that as she’s diminished her reputation, their damages should be accordingly diminished. They’ll want something financial out of this after all of their devious efforts.’

  ‘You can bet they will,’ Rachel said bitterly. ‘Will they win, do you think?’

  ‘My guess is that they’d settle. Going to court is always a gamble, and in this case there are too many uncertainties on both sides. I imagine that Zizi will probably have to give up some of her damages and pay her own costs, but not theirs. Pure Dirt may even get away with not paying any damages at all.’

  ‘What about the fax thing?’ Jess asked.

  ‘As far as that goes, the Bar Standards Board will probably refer the matter to the Head of Chambers or to a Disciplinary Tribunal, and I’ll be fined and reprimanded. I don’t want to let myself feel too confident as it’s a very serious offence, but I’d be surprised if I were to be suspended – it happened a long time ago. The fact that the revelation comes from such an unpleasant source should help me, too.’

  ‘I certainly hope it won’t be any worse than that,’ Rachel said warmly. ‘We both do. We’d hate to see that sleazy rag win.’

  ‘By far the worst punishment for me is that I’m not going to be able to hunt for Evie until my current case is over. It opened today and I’ve got to be in court every day for two weeks – there’s a limit to what the junior can be left to do by himself. Not only that, I’ve a full workload for the coming weekend; not only working on the present case, but I’m also preparing for a case that begins in a month’s time.’

  ‘That sounds heavy,’ Jess said with a grimace.

  ‘I’m used to it. But it means that much as I’m desperate to find Evie, I dare not let myself be distracted in the next couple of weeks. I want to do my best for my client – that’s paramount – but I’m also determined to show Pure Dirt that their sordid little plan couldn’t even lose me the case I was working on.’ He paused, then added, ‘Since I can’t look for her at the moment, I think I’ll hire a detective to find her.’

  ‘I wouldn’t, if I were you,’ Jess said at once. ‘She obviously needs time by herself to get over what’s happened. Otherwise she’d have been in touch.’

  ‘Jess is right, Tom. Give her some space.’

  He hesitated. ‘I don’t know. I need to feel as if I’m doing something. If I can’t do it myself, and I can’t, the next best thing is knowing that someone else is doing it. I’m not good at sitting back and doing nothing.’

  ‘But that could be the best thing for Evie,’ Jess said quietly.

  Tom sighed deeply. ‘Maybe you’re right. OK, I’ll hold off on the detective; for the moment, anyway. Soon as the case is over, I’m going to concentrate on finding her. Till then, though, I’ll be patient. That is, when I’ve done the one thing that I’ve got to do this evening –something that can’t wait.’

  Jess smiled at him. ‘It wouldn’t entail a trip to Holland Park, would it?’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Moment of Truth

  ‘Who is it?’ Gabriela’s voice came through the intercom seconds after Tom had buzzed the number of her flat.

  ‘It’s Tom. I was in the area and I thought I’d drop by on the off chance you were home. But just say if it’s not convenient – I can always go away. I wouldn’t want to impose.’

  A little laugh sounded through the intercom; a slightly nervous little laugh, he was inclined to think.

  ‘It’s no imposition, Tom. I shall be happy to see you.’ He heard the pleasure in her voice, but there was definitely a hint of wariness, too. His lips tightened. So there should be. ‘Push the door now,’ the disembodied voice instructed. ‘I’m on the first floor.’

  He pushed open the door and went into the entrance hall. Struggling to stifle the wave of anger that welled up in him, he made straight for the staircase. When he reached the first floor, Gabriela was standing in her doorway. She stepped forward as he approached, her wide smile not quite touching her eyes. Pursing scarlet-coloured lips in the air, she raised her face to him.

  Steadying himself, he leaned down and kissed her on both cheeks. Musky perfume enveloped him.

  ‘It’s wonderful to see you again, Gabriela,’ he said, straightening up and staring into her face. There was unmistakable nervousness in the depths of her jet black eyes. ‘Wonderful,’ he repeated, putting as much warmth and enthusiasm into his voice as he could muster.

  ‘I feel the same,’ she murmured, and he sensed her beginning to relax. ‘It’s so lovely to see you again, Tom. But come – we must not stand here. Let me be very English and offer you some tea.’ With a smile of invitation, she turned and led the way into the apartment and across the hall.

  He closed the door behind him. His jaw clenched, he followed her into the sitting room. Pausing, he looked around. ‘What a beautiful room,’ he commented.

  Huge pictures hung from the white walls, their muted grey and brown tones echoing in the profusion of light grey and lavender throws and cushions, and in the intricate shapes of musky grey sculptured glass that had been skilfully placed around the room for dramatic effect. ‘You must have worked very hard to get it like this in so short a space of time.’

  ‘I didn’t have so much to do. The flat was already very beautiful, and in a style that pleases me. For the rest, I had help. You lent me Evie for a few days, did you not?’

  ‘That’s a name I’d rather you didn’t mention, thank you very much,’ he said tersely, and he sat down heavily on the sofa and started to loosen his tie. He stopped mid-action, his hand still on his tie for dramatic effect. ‘It is OK to make myself at home, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course, it is,’ Gabriela said with a broad smile. ‘You must look upon this as your second home.’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ he told her. ‘Or as my third home, to be more precise.’ They both laughed.

  He pulled off his tie, put it into his pocket and undid the top button of his shirt. Leaning back against the sofa, he smiled up at her. ‘And I’m going to be even bolder than I’ve already been, and tell you that I could do with something stronger than tea. I rather think I need it, the way I feel.’

  She laughed merrily. ‘I have a very good single malt whisky. At least, I have been told that it’s good. You must tell me if you agree with the recommendation. For me, I prefer to drink wine. There’s a bottle of white wine in the fridge. Perhaps you will go and open it for me and bring it in here. You’ll find a rather elaborate opener in the cupboard above the refrigerator.’

  He promptly got up and went out to find the kitchen.

  When he returned to the sitting room, an open bottle of wine in one hand and an ice bucket in the other, he saw Gabriela bending over the glass table. She’d obviously just moved one of the magazines from the top of the pile to the bottom and was hastily straightening them all.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said, putting the ice bucket on the table, and resting the bottle on the ice.

  ‘Thank you, Tom,’ she said with a smile, and went over to the white cabinet in the corner of the room.

  He sat down on the sofa and watched as she took out a wine glass and a crystal whisky glass, followed by a decanter of whisky, and carried them on a pale wood tray to the coffee table. She placed the whisky glass and decanter in front of Tom, and the wine glass by the chair on the opposite side of the table. Putting the tray squarely on top of the magazines, she sat down.

  ‘You’re certainly right about it being an all singing, all dancing wine opener,’ he remarked, raising himself slightly to pour some wine into Gabriela’s glass. Then he rested the bo
ttle back in the bucket, filled his glass with whisky and sat back on the sofa.

  Gabriela picked up her glass. ‘I think we should have a toast. To the first of what I hope will be many visits.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ he said, and he forced a smile to his face as he raised his glass to his lips. ‘It’s good to see a friendly face after the day I’ve had.’ He took a long drink, then put the glass on the table. As he did so, his gaze slid along to the pile of magazines under the tray. He leaned across and removed the tray.

  He felt Gabriela’s eyes on him as he ran his fingers down the edges of the magazines, nudging them sideways to expose the issues that lay at the bottom. He heard her catch her breath as his eyes zeroed in on the letters visible on the magazine at the bottom of the pile. Dirt and EXPOSÉ glared back at them.

  ‘I assume you’ve read the article,’ he said flatly, sitting back and nodding towards the magazine.

  ‘Yes, I have, Tom,’ Gabriela said, a note of apology in her voice. ‘I started buying the magazine as it was one of the things that Evie said I should read in order to learn about the English way of life.’

  ‘The English way of life!’ He injected a harsh note of bitterness into his voice. ‘So that’s how she describes the content of filthy rags like Pure Dirt, is it? Well in my book, using subterfuge and lies to uncover and expose the secrets of people in the public eye, secrets that are no one else’s business, is the very opposite of the English way of life. There’s something deeply sick about it, and about the people who are making their living by trying to destroy the lives of others. And that includes Evie Shaw. She really pulled the wool over my eyes in order to screw me good and hard.’

  He leaned forward and picked up his glass of whisky. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of triumph play across Gabriela’s lips. It swiftly passed and she raised her glass, took a sip of her drink and set the glass down.

  ‘I’m sure that Evie didn’t mean to write the story,’ she said, her voice gentle. ‘The people at Pure Dirt will most likely have found her notes by accident and they themselves will have written the story. I cannot believe that Evie would ever give them anything unpleasant about you. She seemed to me to be very fond of you.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I thought, too, but obviously we were both wrong. Much as I’d like to believe that it was all a mistake, as you’re suggesting, I can’t. This isn’t Hollywood – it’s real life – and in real life she wouldn’t have jotted down what I’d said if she hadn’t intended to make a story out of it. There’d have been no point. And what’s more, if she had made such notes, she’d never have left them lying around – a reporter wouldn’t be that careless. Every story means money to them and they’d jealously guard the facts that they’d gathered.’

  ‘It did say that Evie was a new reporter. She will not yet think in the way that experienced reporters will think.’

  ‘Even if you’re right – and it’s a sign of your very generous nature that you’re trying to make Evie innocent in all of this – even if you’re right and she’d left her notes lying around, no one would have been able to read them. Apart from the fact that her writing leaves a lot to be desired, it’s virtually impossible for one person to make sense of another person’s notes. The essence of notes is that they remind the writer of what was said, not that they record every detail. No, that story could only have been written by Evie – I told it to no one else.’

  He sat back with a deep sigh.

  ‘Oh, Tom, I’m so sorry for you.’ Her voice shook with sympathy. ‘I can see how much Evie’s action has hurt you. Will you be in terrible trouble for these things you have done?’

  ‘I may have to make some reparation for reading what I shouldn’t have done – a fine and a reprimand for the business with the fax, maybe; hopefully not much more than that. As for Zizi, despite their insinuations, there’s no proof that we had a sexual relationship – and there couldn’t be as we didn’t. Nevertheless, Pure Dirt will obviously try to get their damages reduced at the very least. No, one of the worst aspects of the whole thing for me personally is the way in which my colleagues will look at me after such an exposure. To be shown to have breached our code of conduct is humiliating, to say the least.’

  ‘I wish I knew what to say that would help you. People who know you, Tom, will know that you are a good man – a man, though, not a saint. Zizi will have led you on, like many unscrupulous women do to powerful men. And as for reading forbidden material, you were a very young man, who was working alone on his first big case.’ He stiffened. ‘After all these years of great work, they will not hold these unimportant things against you. You must put this magazine story behind you and forget about Evie and her betrayal. Look only to the future now.’

  ‘You’re right, Gabriela,’ he said very quietly, and he sat upright. ‘I was extremely young when I read that fax and it was the first time that I’d ever gone solo. However, that information doesn’t appear in the magazine article. Evie knew the facts, though, as I told her the full story. The only way you can have known them, and known about Zizi and me, was if Evie told you. You wrote the article for the magazine, didn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about, Tom.’ Her mouth smiled. ‘We are friends, are we not? Friends do not do things like that to each other. Evie was not your friend, but I am.’

  ‘I used to think that that was the case, but I’ve clearly been proved wrong.’ He looked across the table at her. ‘Tell me, why did you do it?’

  He watched the colour drain from her face. A harsh patch of red stood out on each of her cheeks. ‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ she stammered.

  ‘Oh, but you do. I didn’t for one moment think that Evie wrote the story and gave it to the magazine, but if I had harboured any suspicion of her being guilty, it would have been swept away the minute you confirmed that she’d passed on what I told her in Italy.’

  ‘I have confirmed nothing like that.’ She attempted to laugh. ‘You are not making much sense, Tom. Or perhaps I am not understanding your English very well. Evie was the reporter, not me.’

  ‘I’m quite certain that you manipulated Evie into telling you what I told her. When I find her – which I will do – she’ll tell me how. What I want to know from you now is why you did this. What on earth can have been your motive?’

  Gabriela took a deep breath.

  For a moment he thought that she was going to protest her innocence again, but then he saw her hesitate. A look of resignation crossed her face and she released her breath in a small sigh. Positioning herself on the edge of her chair, she gave an elegant shrug of her shoulders and spread out her hands, palms upwards, in a gesture of helplessness.

  ‘It was on the spur of the moment, Tom. I was not thinking clearly. When Evie told me these things about you, and told me about the magazine, another person inside me took over. I can’t say any more about it than that. Please believe me, I am so sorry for what I did.’

  He stood up. ‘Hardly a spur of the moment action, I would have thought. However, I have a feeling that I’m going to have to be satisfied with that as your answer, although it still doesn’t explain why you wanted to hurt me.’

  ‘Oh, no, I never wanted to hurt you, Tom.’ She quickly stood up and started to move round the table towards him. ‘Not you. I would never hurt you – I love you. It was about Evie. She does not deserve you. Who is she? What kind of family does she come from; what breeding does she have; what education? She is not the woman for you, and she would not have been the woman for my brother.’

  ‘For Eduardo?’

  ‘Yes, she would have been wrong for him, too, although he could not see this. The Montefiori family must unite themselves only with the best. I have known you are the person for me since Eduardo showed me your photograph and told me about your illustrious career. Oh, Tom, do you not feel in your heart that you and I are meant to be together?’

  She stretched out her arms and put her hands on his shoulders. Wi
th a shudder, he pushed them away from him and stepped back from her.

  ‘I now have your answer to my question, Gabriela. And my answer to your question is that I’m leaving this flat now, never to return.’

  He walked past her, crossed the room in long strides and went out of the apartment without a backward glance.

  Gabriela turned slightly and stared at the open doorway. His footsteps echoed around the stairwell as he bounded down the stairs, and then she heard the front door slam shut. She started to tremble. A moment later, an engine was revved up in the street below her apartment.

  She spun round, ran to the window and reached it just as his black car started to pull away from the kerb in front of her house. Pressing her face against the window pane, she watched him drive around the central garden and turn down a road that led out of the square.

  ‘Tom,’ she whimpered as she saw him go, and she put her hand on the cold glass as if to stop him. ‘Tom.’

  Slowly she raised her eyes from the garden below to the brick gateposts that flanked the Victorian houses on the other side of the square, and higher still, beyond the jagged line of tiled roofs and chimneys to the pale blue sky above.

  White clouds drifted slowly into view, bringing with them the sound of three girls laughing in a bustling, crowded restaurant. She could see their faces smiling at her, faces offering friendship. One more face appeared, the face that had dominated her thoughts for so many months – a man’s face.

  But the clouds continued their leisurely pace across the sky, and they took with them the laughter, the smiles, and the faces – all of the faces. And there was nothing.

  Month after month stretched out ahead of her, imprisoning her far from home, alone and friendless in an alien country. She turned away and looked back at her sitting room. Before her she saw emptiness. In her head, there was silence.