(2012) Evie Undercover

by Liz Harris

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Eureka (well, almost Eureka)

  What a brilliant end to the week, Tom thought in jubilation as he walked into his house. Winning a case had never been as satisfying as it had been that afternoon. How he would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when those hacks at Pure Dirt heard what the jury’s verdict had been.

  Of course, there were still some loose ends to be tied up, such as the award of costs and the amount of damages, but the decision in favour of his client had come through loud and clear, and he hoped that those muckrakers hadn’t missed a single word.

  But even better than his victory over Pure Dirt, with the current case behind him and the preparation for his next case well under way, he could now get down to looking for Evie. He’d waited long enough to do something about finding her – he fervently hoped that he hadn’t made a mistake in heeding the advice of Evie’s friends about the detective – and he wasn’t going to wait a moment longer. He couldn’t wait to see her again. Just the thought of starting the search that would end with him holding her in his arms made him feel more excited than a schoolboy on the first day of the summer holidays.

  He left the wheelie bag at the foot of the staircase, pulled off his coat and dropped it on the bottom stair – it would have to go to the dry cleaner’s before he wore it again – hung his suit jacket over the rail, went into the drawing room, poured some whisky into a glass and carried the glass up the stairs to his study. Sitting down in his swivel chair, he leaned back and linked his fingers behind his head.

  Where to begin his search, he wondered.

  Looking back, he now wished he hadn’t listened to Rachel and Jess, but had followed his instinct and gone ahead and hired a private detective. If he’d done that, he might already know where to find her and not be sitting in his study, staring at a glass of whisky, in a quandary about where to start looking.

  He stared around the room, deep in thought.

  Rachel and Jess would definitely have rung him if they’d heard anything so there was no point in ringing them that evening. Getting in touch with Pure Dirt was a non-starter. He could hardly ask them if they’d pass on Evie’s details so that he could track her down. That would really make the editor’s day.

  He swivelled round in his chair and stared through the window at the walled garden below. The agency was going to be his only hope, and that was a very slim hope – they’d probably never even had her full details as the whole thing had been a set-up, a supposition rather borne out by the fact that no one had returned any of his calls.

  But the agency was all he had.

  Unfortunately, once again it was much too late on a Friday evening for there to be anyone on the premises so he’d have to wait until Monday morning before he spoke to them. There was no point in leaving yet another phone message. That meant that there wasn’t a lot he could do that weekend, apart from visiting Rachel and Jess, which he’d do first thing the following morning. Even if they hadn’t heard from Evie, it would be nice to be able to talk to them about her, and the three of them might even come up with something if they brainstormed some ideas about where she might have gone.

  Also, he’d ask them for the contact details of Evie’s parents in Australia, and then he’d call her parents. But there was no point in trying to get their number that evening because the time difference meant that he wouldn’t be able to ring them until the following day. The girls were probably right in thinking that she wouldn’t have gone to Australia, but she might just have phoned her family and given them some idea of where she was. It was a long shot, but any sort of shot was worth pursuing.

  At the same time, he’d tell the girls that he was going to hire a detective at once. The more people looking for her, the better. As far as he was concerned, Evie had had enough breathing space in which to sort herself out, and she might be more than ready to be found, especially when she knew that the truth was out and nothing very terrible had happened. And he was desperate to see her.

  So, Camden Town the following morning it was, and then the agency on Monday. Feeling better at having a plan of action, he swung back round to face his desk, finished his whisky and went back downstairs.

  He reached the foot of the stairs and stepped over his coat. There was a very good dry cleaner’s in Camden Town, he remembered; he could drop it off on the way to visit Rachel and Jess. He rested his glass on the bottom stair and picked up the coat to check the pockets – he’d once sent a jacket to the cleaner’s that had in its pockets the only copy of the many billable hours he’d worked on a case. He’d never made such a mistake again.

  He checked the outer pockets – they were empty – then he dug deep into his inside pocket. His fingers closed around a small package – it was the present that he’d bought for Evie. He’d planned to give it to her on the Friday night that she’d finished working for him, as a way of marking the start of their new relationship. Not surprisingly, however, he’d forgotten about it in the turmoil of the last two weeks.

  Getting exactly the thing he’d wanted for her had taken some organising, but he’d managed it, and he’d been certain that it was going to have been worth every minute of the trouble he’d gone to when he saw the expression on her face as she opened it.

  He took the package out of his pocket, unwrapped it and lifted out the piece of carved onyx. He stared at it with satisfaction – yes, Evie was going to love it. Just one problem, though – he had to find her first if he wanted to give it to her.

  All of a sudden, his heart leapt, and he gasped out loud. What an idiot he was! He knew exactly where he would find Evie. It was all but staring him in the face.

  He thumped the worktop with his clenched fist, and then, smiling broadly, he reached across to the telephone and pulled it towards him.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  And then there were two

  Evie sat under the loggia, staring across the distant hills as the sun set over Todi.

  The deep red sky, streaked with crimson and vermilion, was slowly fading into the black of night. As she gazed at the panorama in front of her, the first light of evening came on in the heart of the old town of Todi, followed by another light, and another, until the town was ablaze with silvery lights, an island of glittering diamonds adrift on a sea of darkening hills.

  A little way down from the old town, just beyond the outer edge of the town wall, the ancient white stone of the large round dome of the Santa Maria della Consolazione shone pale in the night.

  If only it was always that easy to see the light, she thought ruefully.

  In her mad panic on that dreadful Friday in London, all she’d been able to think about was getting out of the city as fast as she could and going somewhere miles away where no one would find her. She’d been so sure that once she’d escaped London, she’d see clearly what to do about Tom and the mess she was in. It hadn’t worked out like that, though, and she still hadn’t a clue what to do next. And time was fast running out.

  She pulled her yellow cardigan more closely around her shoulders, stood up and started to stroll through the spotlit gardens towards the paved steps that led down to the pool and the olive groves.

  She couldn’t imagine how she’d ever thought that coming back to the house where she’d fallen head over heels in love with Tom, could help her to think clearly. She’d desperately missed him for every single minute of the two weeks that she’d been in Italy.

  Every step that she took in his house reminded her of the steps she’d taken with him; the plastic glasses that she used were the glasses that she’d used with him; the bed she slept on was the bed she’d chosen with him; the lavender-scented Italian air she breathed was the air that she’d breathed with him.

  He was on her mind every second of the day, surrounded as she was by all her memories of him.

  If anything, she was even more confused about what to do than when she’d left London. It should be a simple choice – either move to Italy and take the job with Eduar
do, or turn down Eduardo’s offer for a second time and return to London to try to convince Tom that no matter what it looked like, she didn’t write that story. So why couldn’t she decide what to do?

  Was it fear that was stultifying her?

  The magazine article was only one of the things she’d have to answer to Tom for. Even if she managed to convince him of her innocence – and it was a bloody big if – she’d still have to convince him that it was a temporary aberration that made her agree to work for a fetid rag like Pure Dirt in the first place, and then she’d have to explain why she’d passed on to Gabriela what he’d told her in confidence. Was she afraid that a failure to convince Tom would mean the end of all hope, and it was that trace of hope that was keeping her going?

  How could she have been so stupid as to have been taken in by Gabriela that easily! And how could she have been so silly as to let herself get so drunk that evening that she blurted out something that she’d had no intention of ever telling anyone? And then what happened afterwards … how could any woman be as scheming and manipulative as Gabriela? And why?

  It must have been Gabriela who dropped off the story that Wednesday morning. No one else – not even Rachel and Jess – knew what Tom had told her. It made sense of why Gabriela had always been there, no matter which way she turned, watching over her, making sure that she rang the editor on the Tuesday night, and not on the Wednesday morning.

  Gabriela must have phoned her on the Wednesday afternoon to check that she hadn’t spoken to anyone at Pure Dirt during the day. She must have wanted to make sure that she didn’t learn about a story being delivered until it was far too late to do anything about it. Gabriela would assume that she’d panic on the Friday as soon as she found out, and get out of London fast, which is what she’d done.

  If she’d been able to think more clearly, she might have come up with a better plan of action than running away. She could have challenged Gabriela on the Friday, and stayed on that evening to tell Tom what had happened. But her head had been all over the place and she’d been in a frantic state. All she’d been able to see in her mind’s eye was Tom’s face when he learnt the truth about their trip to Italy, and she’d been overwhelmed by the anguish she’d felt.

  And she’d been certain that Tom wouldn’t believe her.

  Why would he? He’d have thought that in the hope of hanging on to him and his lifestyle, she was trying to put the blame on a charming woman, who had absolutely no reason at all to want to hurt him. Gabriela would come across as innocence itself and would deny that she’d ever been told Tom’s story, and it would be impossible for her to prove that she had.

  No, in the state that she’d been in on that fateful Friday, she’d latched on to the only constructive thing that had rushed into her mind – Eduardo’s offer of a job that would take her miles away from the trouble she’d caused.

  Gabriela would probably be horrified to know it, but unwittingly she’d helped her – she’d told her that Eduardo was attached to someone else. If it hadn’t been for that, she would never have moved back into Eduardo’s life again. Even if she hadn’t fallen for Tom, Eduardo would never have been her type and it wouldn’t have been fair to have given him false hope.

  As she’d run from Tom’s house to Hampstead Tube Station, she’d phoned Eduardo to ask him if the offer of work was still open. He’d been audibly surprised to hear that she was considering taking the job after all, but he’d quickly recovered and told her that the position was still hers if she wanted it.

  Not only was there a job for her, he’d assured her, but the first items of Tom’s furniture were to be delivered in a couple of days, and he’d just started looking for someone to be at the house. If she wanted to be that person, he need not look for anyone else. Such an arrangement would help them both.

  She’d instantly said no, that it wouldn’t be right. But Eduardo had insisted. The co-operative was excellent, he’d said, but it was disorganised and the furniture was unlikely to be delivered all at once. It would be so much easier for him to know that there was someone at the house in the day. And if she was going to be there all day, she might as well stay on in the evening.

  What’s more, he’d added, there’d been a robbery last week in an empty second home owned by Americans, so it was a good idea to have someone living in Tom’s house as much as possible.

  The thought of going back to Tom’s house had been irresistible, and she’d been willing to let Eduardo persuade her. She’d stay there, she finally agreed, but only until the furniture had all been delivered.

  One of his cousins had some apartments in Todi, Eduardo had told her, and he would make sure that she had the first one that became available. In the meantime, he was sure that Tom would approve of their arrangement.

  She’d hastily cut in that she’d prefer Tom not to know that she was in Italy, and Eduardo had agreed not to tell him. He’d also reminded her – and there’d been a smile in his voice as he’d said it – that Tom would find it rather difficult to understand anything he told him, unless he happened to be with Gabriela at the time.

  And nor should he tell Gabriela where she was, she’d quickly begged. As Gabriela and Tom were friends, she’d added to soften her words, it wouldn’t be fair to ask her to keep a secret from him.

  If Eduardo had thought the whole thing very strange, he hadn’t said so. All he’d said was that he’d pick her up from Rome Fiumicino later that evening – she must let him know her time of arrival as soon as she’d booked her ticket – and he’d take her straight to Tom’s house. She wouldn’t need to hire a car as he’d find her a car. After all, she was going to be working for him so she’d need transport.

  ‘Grazie mille, Eduardo,’ she’d whispered gratefully into the phone. She’d entered the tube station, and the line had gone dead.

  When he’d met her at the airport, he’d clearly seen that she was in a real state and wouldn’t be able to cope with questions, so their journey had passed in friendly silence. He’d left her at Tom’s house, saying that he’d come up the following day and they’d go and get some provisions and collect a car for her – but that she was to have a holiday before she started work. That was an order, he’d added, and he’d kissed her lightly on the forehead and driven back down the mountain road.

  The following evening he’d taken her out to dinner and told her that he could sense that something was troubling her, but that he wasn’t going to pry. However, if at any time she felt like confiding in him, he would be happy to help her in whatever way he could. The most important thing was that she sorted out her problems before she tried to do anything else.

  She’d thanked him and added, without thinking, that his fiancée was dead lucky to have him.

  Fuck, she’d screamed inwardly. Gabriela had stressed that no one should know what was on the cards for Eduardo until the arrangement had been formalised. Wanting to kick herself for making such a slip, she’d started to apologise for what she’d said, but she’d seen the amazement on his face and her words had died away.

  What fiancée? He didn’t have a fiancée and never had done. He had only ever met one woman he’d have wanted to bear that title, but regretfully he knew deep in his soul that her heart belonged to someone else. He’d glanced quickly across the table, then looked back down at his plate.

  She must have misheard Gabriela, she’d said hastily, and she’d furiously twirled her tagliatelle on to her fork.

  That lying bitch, she’d thought angrily. While that lie had done her a massive favour – she would never have contacted Eduardo without it – Gabriela had landed poor Eduardo in a situation that could cause him a lot of unhappiness.

  Her sandals hit a patch of hard earth, and she came back to the present with a jolt.

  She stopped walking and looked around her. She was standing in the middle of two rows of olive trees. It was the very spot where Tom had first kissed her, she realised.

  She put her fingers to her lips. There might never be any more such
kisses. A sharp pain ran through her.

  How the hell was it possible for someone to hurt so much and for so long, she thought in despair, and she turned round and started to make her way back along to the house.

  As she walked, she thought she heard an engine coming up the mountain road, and she stood still and listened. But she couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from as the hills and trees were distorting the sounds of the night. The sound died away, and she started walking again.

  Leaving the shadowy groves behind her, she went up the slope to the illuminated pool and walked slowly all the way round its edge, staring down at the cool, clear water, remembering the time she’d sat there with Tom. She’d have one last swim in the morning before she left, and then she’d go back to London.

  Back to London.

  It was the first time she’d let those words come into her mind, but the moment she’d done so, she knew that that was what she wanted to do more than anything else in the world. Being in Umbria had given her the breathing space that she’d needed, but she was ready to go home. And she now knew what she was going to do.

  Of course she hadn’t been able to find peace of mind in Italy – she’d never find that until she knew that she’d done everything in her power to make Tom believe that she hadn’t betrayed him. Maybe she wouldn’t succeed in convincing him, but she wouldn’t know until she tried, and hiding away in Italy was not trying.

  There was no way she was going to let Tom go without a massive fight, and not only was she going to fight for him, she was going to win. The thought of not being with him for the rest of her life was unthinkable, just unthinkable. She started to run towards the house. Late though it was, she had to start packing.

  Hurrying through the arched glass doors into the sitting room, she pulled the shutters closed behind her, locked the glass doors, switched off the spotlighting and ran across the room to the hall. With every step that she took, her excitement grew. With luck, the following night she’d be home.