Secrets After Dark
Sadie Matthews
www.hodder.co.uk
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by
Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Sadie Matthews 2012
The right of Sadie Matthews to be identified as the Author of the
Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 444 76671 4
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
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Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
FIRE AFTER DARK
About the Author
To H. B.
Prologue
Every day I wake with the same word going through my mind. One word.
Dominic.
The strange thing is that sometimes it’s just a statement, like a reaffirmation or a mantra, an expression of faith. Sometimes it’s a question – Dominic? As though I’m hoping that his voice will echo in answer through my mind and reassure me that he is still thinking of me, still mine. That we are still connected. And at others, it’s like a shout, a desperate call through the darkness of the night, just as day breaks.
But no matter how hard I listen, I never hear any reply.
Sometimes it’s hard to keep the faith, to believe that he’ll come back to me. But I know he will.
I just don’t know when.
Chapter One
I’m glaring at the man opposite. Using all my strength, my fists clenched, my jaw set with effort, I set my standing leg like steel and pull the other up, ready to put all my force behind it. I pivot slightly on my heel, feel my knee against my chest, then:
POW!
I strike out with a kick, powering it through with everything I can muster. My foot slams into the pad my trainer is holding up, and I note with satisfaction that he wobbles a little under my blow.
‘Good,’ he says. ‘Very good.’
Back on both feet, I stand, panting. ‘I’m ready for another,’ I say breathlessly.
Sid laughs. ‘I think that’s enough for today. I’m beginning to wonder if you slipped some speed into your coffee by mistake. Where are you getting your energy?’
I take off my helmet and shake out my hair, which falls in damp, clammy tendrils round my neck. ‘Oh, you know... I just need to release some tension.’
Which is true. But what kind of tension? Half the time I’m trying to work my unslaked desire for Dominic out of my system. The other half, I’m pretending it’s his boss’s face I’m pounding, the man whose business has kept Dominic out of London all this time. Not that I know what his boss looks like, but that doesn’t matter. By the time I’ve finished my imaginary pummelling, you can’t make out his face anyway.
‘Okay, well done, Beth,’ Sid says, taking off the pads. ‘I’ll see you again next week.’
‘Wow, I’ve managed to work up a real sweat.’ Laura pulls a damp band from her dark hair and shakes it out, wriggling her nose and laughing. She gives me a sideways look. ‘You look like you’ve had a healthy workout yourself.’
‘I’m wiped out.’ I can’t see myself but I know my cheeks are glowing and I can feel the prickle of sweat in my hair and over my brow. ‘But I feel good on it.’
‘Me too.’
It was Laura’s idea to start the kick-boxing classes. I knew she was feeling itchy with suppressed energy now that she’s started her new job. After three years of being a student, and then months of freedom as she backpacked around the world, she has been finding the restrictions of working life a strain.
‘I have to be in the office so early!’ she complained one night, slumping on the sofa in the comfy old tracksuit she changed into after a hard day. She sighed. ‘And all day long I’m supposed to be at my desk, late into the night if I want to show the boss I’m taking it seriously. With only three weeks’ holiday a year! I don’t know how I’m going to cope.’ She gazed at me enviously. ‘You’re so lucky having such an interesting job.’
I shot her a look. ‘But I don’t get a trainee management consultant’s salary, remember?’
She made a disgruntled face. ‘Well, we’ll have to see if it’s worth it, that’s all.’
Her pent-up energy was obviously causing her real problems because when she saw that there were kick-boxing classes at the gym around the corner from our flat, she signed both of us up without so much as asking me if it was okay. Actually, it was. I needed some release myself, but maybe not quite in the same way that Laura did. I surprised myself by taking to it almost immediately and really enjoying it; the sense of the power flowing through my body gives me a rush that’s addictive. I always come home feeling strong and confident, thanks to the rush of endorphins and the proper tiredness that comes from actually doing something energetic, rather than the weariness of work and commuting.
As we let ourselves into our flat, Laura says wonderingly, ‘I still can’t believe that we’re here. Just think – you and me, living together in London, with proper jobs and everything! It feels like only yesterday that we were a couple of scruffy students spending our evenings in the bar making our drinks last as long as we could. Now look at us. It’s kind of glamorous, don’t you think?’
I laugh but don’t say anything as I follow her inside. Laura knows very little of how I spent my summer, or of the incredible things that happened when I met Dominic. If she thinks our slightly down-at-heel place in East London is glamorous, it’s because she never saw the Mayfair apartment from where I first glimpsed Dominic in the flat opposite; or, for that matter, the tiny but luxurious boudoir that he arranged for us on the top floor of the apartment block.
The boudoir. It’s still there, waiting for me. I picture the key, sitting in my jewellery box in a black pouch. But I can’t bring myself to go there. Not without Dominic.
‘I guess a lot has changed since then,’ I say as we go to the kitchen to get some cold water.
Laura fixes me with a knowing look. ‘You certainly have. Sometimes I wonder exactly what happened to you while I was in South America. When I left, you were dead set on settling down with Adam back home. And now... well, I came back to a glamour puss with an incredible job in the art world and the old boyfriend ancient history. All of which is absolutely brilliant but...’
> ‘But?’ I take a couple of glasses from the cupboard and a jug of cold water from the fridge.
‘Beth, the truth is... I’m worried about you.’
‘Worried?’ I echo, watching the water splash into the glasses. I’ve been trying to act as normally as possible. Maybe I haven’t succeeded.
Laura takes the glass I hold out to her and gives me another of her X-ray stares. With her ability to read people and situations, I’m sure she’s going to be an excellent management consultant, but it can make life a little uncomfortable when I’m trying to keep a secret.
‘You haven’t told me much about the man in your life, this Dominic guy,’ she begins in the kind of gentle voice that means something important is coming. ‘But I do know that you’re completely mad about him and that he hasn’t been in touch with you for weeks.’
Six weeks, four days and three hours. Approximately.
I make a kind of non-committal ‘uh’ sound.
‘So I can tell it’s making you unhappy,’ she goes on, still in that gentle tone. ‘You’re trying to hide it but I’m your friend and I know you. So why don’t you just send him a text or an email? Or phone him? Find out what on earth is going on?’
I use the long drink I’m taking as an excuse not to answer for a moment or two, then say, ‘Because he said he was going to contact me. And that’s what I’m waiting for.’
‘I’m all for playing a waiting game,’ Laura says quickly. ‘I mean, not being too eager and too obvious. But from what you said, you guys went far beyond a few dates. You were really serious about each other, weren’t you?’
I note the past tense, and feel a horrible twist of pain. I’ve been trying to convince myself it’s not really over, but Laura’s casual assessment of the situation is like a bucket of cold water landing on all my hopes.
‘So,’ she continues, oblivious, ‘get in touch. Demand an explanation. Ask him when he’s coming back and how he feels about you.’
‘I can’t,’ I say gruffly. I wish I could tell her why it’s not that simple but there are things about my relationship with Dominic I’ve never told anyone. I imagine what it would be like to explain to Laura about the things we did in the boudoir, or the events in the dungeon at the The Asylum, but even though she’s my best friend and experienced enough in the ways of the world, I don’t think she would understand. She’d be horrified. She’d tell me to dump him pronto, and find myself someone nice and normal.
Maybe I should.
But I know in my heart that I don’t want someone nice and normal. I had that and I can never go back to it.
Laura is looking exasperated. ‘I don’t understand why you can’t get in touch with him. It’s obvious this is driving you crazy! You’re unhappy, I can see it!’
‘I’m not unhappy,’ I reply.
‘You’re not?’
‘Nope. I’m furious. That’s what I am. Mad as hell. He can stay away for ever as far as I’m concerned.’ My declaration rings false even as I’m saying it. I am furious, but I can’t tell whether it’s with Dominic for not contacting me, with myself for trusting him in the first place, or with his boss, for sending him out of the country just at the moment when we were sorting everything out.
Laura stares at me, and then says, ‘Just call him, Beth. Get yourself out of this torment.’
I smile at her. ‘You don’t need to worry about me. Honestly. But I’m not going to call him. Or text. Or email. If he wants me, he knows where I am. Until then, I’m getting on with my life. Talking of which, whose turn is it to make dinner? I’m starving.’
It’s only much later, when I’m in bed, that I’m able to let my strength ebb away. I lie on my back, hugging myself for comfort, sending out my question to the universe:
Where are you Dominic?
‘Beth, how are you?’
Mark Palliser, my boss, greets me in his usual friendly way as I come into his office. He calls it his office, but really it’s such a beautiful room there should be some other kind of name for it, less personal than study but more appealing than office, with its overtones of fluorescent strip-lighting, filing cabinets and photocopiers. This room couldn’t be further from that. It’s circular, with a glittering chandelier hanging from an ornate plaster rose, and egg-and-dart cornicing that skirts the ceiling. Its three large windows, framed by voluptuously draped curtains, overlook a garden and in the bay sits Mark’s desk, a huge polished piece of Regency furniture inlaid with exquisite marquetry work. The floor is gleaming parquet covered with rich and elegantly faded Turkish rugs, and the room glows with the golden light cast by the lamps that sit on the desk and sideboards. Best of all, though, is the art that covers the walls: oils in intricately carved and gilded frames, watercolours, pastels, charcoal sketches, prints and engravings. The subjects are wide and varied: a beautiful oil landscape of a Scottish loch sits happily beside a glorious Renaissance sepia pencil sketch of an angel. A portrait of a melting-eyed spaniel is next to a dark engraving of a scene of Regency debauchery. Every now and then, something disappears and a new treasure takes its place, because Mark has found a home for it with one of his many clients. I’m beginning to learn how it all works. Only last week, I arranged for a tiny Impressionist oil sketch of a girl bathing to be packed up in Mark’s signature style: he has wooden frames to contain the works, protective sheets, specially designed boxing, pale green bubble wrap and acid free tissue paper, all stamped with his personal emblem, the letters MP in an oval frame. When the little picture was securely packed, I had it insured for a sum that made my mouth go dry when I read it, and then sent it to one of the most expensive addresses in the world.
All this is so far from the way I grew up, in a tiny Norfolk village, I can sometimes hardly believe that this is where I pass my days, and get paid for it too.
Mark is sitting behind his desk, as elegantly turned out as ever. He has thick dark hair sprouting from a low forehead, tiny but bright blue eyes, a long nose over a small mouth and a receding chin. He is not at all good-looking, and yet he carries himself with the air of someone who is distinguishedly handsome, and he is always so well dressed and perfectly presented that I can’t help believing somehow that he is.
‘Good morning, Mark,’ I say in response to his greeting. ‘I’m fine, thank you. Can I get you anything?’
‘No, thank you. Gianna brought me some coffee earlier.’ Mark smiles at me. ‘Now. To business.’
I sit down, as usual, in the leather bucket chair opposite his desk and take out my turquoise ostrich-skin notebook – a present from James, my old boss, given to me when I started this job – to take down details of whatever Mark wants me to do today. The work is always varied and always interesting – I never know whether we’ll be going off to Sotheby’s, Bonhams or Christie’s for an auction, or visiting a client in one of their extraordinary homes, whether we’ll be travelling across the country to an estate sale or called to evaluate a new find. Mark is a respected and successful private art dealer – successful enough to have a Belgravia house, and some extremely valuable art in his own private collection.
I make quick notes, scrawling rapidly over the fine light paper of my notebook, as Mark runs through a few things he wants me to do. I’ve only been working for him for a few weeks but already I feel an important part of his team. There is also Jane, his secretary, who deals with a lot of the boring admin, which is lucky for me as Mark can barely type an email and prefers to write everything out longhand and have someone else transcribe it. She comes in twice a day, in the morning to collect work in the dark green leather wallets embossed with gold MPs, and in the afternoon to deliver it back, as she works from her little Chelsea flat with her two King Charles spaniels for company.
‘So.’ Mark puts down his vintage Cartier fountain pen, and sits back in his chair. He fixes me with his bright blue beady look. ‘I’ve got something to ask you. Your passport. Is it up to date?’
I visualise my passport sitting in my knicker drawer where I keep it. The b
urgundy cover is pristine, it’s so unused, but it’s certainly valid. ‘Yes.’
‘Good. How would you like to go on a little trip with me? Nowhere too exotic, I’m afraid. Just the South of France.’
I gape at him.
He looks back at me, obviously interpreting my silence as reluctance. ‘I quite understand if you’d rather not, and I’m sure I can manage perfectly well on my own—’
‘No, no,’ I say hastily. ‘I’d love to. Really. I’ve been to France, of course, but only family holidays to Normandy and a school trip to Paris. I’d love to visit the south.’
‘It is very beautiful there.’ Mark smiles. ‘But I don’t know how much sightseeing I can promise. We will be working and so we’ll probably spend most of our time at the villa, but I’ll see what I can do about arranging a chance to slip away.’
‘The villa?’
‘Yes. We’re going to see perhaps my most prestigious client. Certainly the richest, if that’s how one measures these things. Andrei Dubrovski is an extremely successful oligarch – have you heard of him?’
The name almost winds me as I hear it drop from Mark’s mouth. Dubrovski. It’s the name I’ve been muttering in my mind while aiming strong kicks at Sid’s pads. Take that, Dubrovski! And that! It’s been a part of my life from when Dominic first mentioned him: Andrei Dubrovski. My boss. Since then, the mysterious Russian tycoon has been a shadowy yet important part of my life. It was his mission that sent Dominic to Russia just when our relationship hit its crisis.
It seems so long ago now, that warm summer’s night at a restaurant on the bank of the Thames, where the breeze blew fresh and briny across our faces. That was when Dominic and I agreed that he would initiate me into a world of excitement, pleasure and pain that I had only previously imagined. I was high with anticipation and giddy with a sense that he and I were taking this journey together. I was utterly bewitched by him. And for a while, the adventure was a beautiful one, taking me to places of extreme physical pleasure I hadn’t known existed. The joy lasted until the night in The Asylum, when he went too far and caused me real and desperate pain, both in my body and my heart. I forgave him, but he was devastated by what he’d done. He needed to sort himself out, he said. That was when Dubrovski summoned him to Russia on some project or other, and Dominic took the chance to put some space between us while he cleared his head. ‘Wait for me,’ he’d said. And I had.
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