Dead Romantic

by Ruth Saberton

  “The cat’s back too,” Susie says. “I’ve no idea where he’s been but he’s hardly moved from the sofa now.”

  “And how’s the flat looking?” I tease. “Neat and tidy?”

  “Err…” Susie pauses. “Sort of.”

  I laugh, knowing full well that the place will look like a bomb’s gone off. There’ll be a washing-up mountain in the sink, the bathroom will be spattered with pink hair dye and the fridge will be growing mould that will soon be an alternative life form. It will look like something from one of those TV shows about hoarders, only even messier.

  “When are you back?” Susie asks casually, but I’m not fooled. She’ll be panicking that I’m about to return before she can fumigate the place.

  “Not until Sunday evening.”

  “Err, sorry?” Susie sounds shocked. “I think I heard that wrong? I thought you said you’d be home on Sunday? Which means you’ve been away a week? Who are you and what have you done with the real Cleo Carpenter? Haven’t you heard? The Wellby Museum is in chaos!”

  “Very funny. I just reckoned that I needed some time off. It’s been a tough couple of months. Besides, it’s Christmas and Dad could do with a bit of company.”

  “Now I’m really scared,” says Susie, actually sounding worried – and not just because she thinks I’m going to tell her off about the state of the flat. “You’re still not quite yourself, are you?”

  Luckily Susie has no idea just how “not quite myself” I am these days.

  “It will be back to business as usual next week,” I say, with a great deal more conviction than I feel. “It’s just that I’ve been figuring a few things out lately. The museum has been really good about giving me some time off.”

  “They must owe you about two years in untaken holiday,” Susie points out. “Anyway talking about the museum, I meant to tell you: I gave that gorgeous guy the artefact he needed, like you said?”

  As we’ve been chatting I’ve kept the phone tucked between my chin and collar bone so that I can continue to walk home. I’m just about to cross the road and turn into our street as Susie says this. Her words stop me in my tracks. There’s no way I can cope with negotiating the traffic and comprehending what she’s telling me.

  “Sorry, Suse, I don’t think I’ve heard you right. What gorgeous man? What artefact?”

  There’s a heavy sigh at the end of the line. “Please, please go back and see the specialist. Short-term memory loss is often an indication that there’s a bigger problem.”

  Susie is back in medic mode now, which would be fine if I actually thought there was a medical issue here. I may be seeing ghosts – and watching box sets with them – but I am not losing my memory.

  “What man?” I repeat.

  “That one you’ve been on about?” I can almost see her rolling her eyes. “Girlfriend, I take it all back. He is way hot! I totally get it now, why you spend so much time at work. That Dr Simon is hot.”

  “You’ve met Simon?” I’m confused. Has Susie flipped and visited the museum? I can’t quite imagine it. The last time I looked the gift shop didn’t sell funky boots.

  “He came round here to pick up that funny little statue that you had in your room? The one your grandmother gave you? You’d said he could take it for the exhibition. Didn’t you?”

  I’m horrified because this statue is the key to my research. The symbols on the base, meaning not the gods’ will, are the biggest clue that Aamon was murdered. Carved by a daring priest, they were the starting point for my grandmother’s search to find the young pharaoh’s body and discover the truth. Along with her work, she left the statue to my mother – who in turn left it to me. I would never, ever lend it to anyone. I don’t even keep it in the museum, although I plan to donate it to the nation once my research is finished. I’d never hand it to Simon, bump on the head or not. Never!

  I open my mouth but no words come out. Simon went to my house and took the statue of Aamon? I wrack my brains and I cannot remember a time when I ever offered to lend him my statue. It means the world to me, just as completing the research on the Aamonic period is my final gift to her. There’s no way I would ever part with that statue, bump on the head or not. Never! There’s a horrible sensation breaking over me, as though all the blood in my body is being pushed to the tips of my fingers and toes, turning icy as it does so.

  “When was this?” I manage to say.

  Susie is quiet for a second. “Blimey, it was a day ago. Two days, maybe? No, I know: it was the day you left. Simon was so sorry to have missed you.” She pauses and then adds excitedly, “I think he really likes you!”

  A cold finger of unease traces a path down my spine. I saw Simon the day I left. I gave him my application. He knew I was on my way to Buckinghamshire. He even offered to accompany me to the station. He knew one hundred percent that I wouldn’t be in the flat when he turned up.

  What’s going on?

  Making my excuses to Susie, I end the call and then try Simon again. There’s no answer so I leave a swift message asking him to call me as soon as possible. For a moment I contemplate calling the Professor and asking him what the hell Simon’s up to, but I manage to stop myself just as my finger is poised over the call button.

  Something tells me that Simon will already have a plausible explanation and my anger and shock will count against me. I’ll be seen as a hysterical woman and, worse than that, an irrational and unreliable one – one whose mental health is in question thanks to her unfortunate head injury. Simon will insist I said he could borrow the statue and then make some sad-eyed reference to my accident, probably suggesting that I’m not well. My skin crawls with dread as I recall the numerous times Simon has so caringly brought up my health, under the guise of being solicitous. You’re forgetting things – that’s what he’ll say, and what is the Professor to think? It’ll certainly look as though I’ve lost the plot. Let’s face it; my behaviour recently has been out of character in so many ways. Rumours start easily in institutions like ours and spread like wildfire.

  As an academic I need to be seen to be rational. I’ve got to take a deep breath, compose myself and calculate what to do next. Simon’s made a move in our game of career chess and I need to work out how to counter it. Making accusations and charging back to London right now, which is what I feel like doing, won’t help. Instinct tells me that turning up ranting and raging will be playing right into Simon’s beautifully manicured hands. I need to be cool, calm and collected. Level-headed and cerebral Cleo, not this shaking and fuming version of me.

  I have no idea what Simon is playing at. Trying to force my heartbeat to slow, I shove my phone into my bag and attempt to formulate a plan.

  Maybe I should have a tee shirt or a mug emblazoned with Keep Calm and Deal with Your Thieving Colleague, I think as I cross the road and turn towards my father’s house.

  Then I decide that tomorrow morning I’ll take the first train to London. There’s nothing I can do from here. I’ll catch the quarter-to-seven train and be in the museum before Simon. I’ll fetch my statue back from his office and afterwards I’ll quietly but firmly insist on an explanation. If I’m not satisfied then I’ll speak to the Prof. I’m sure he’ll view this incident in a very dim light.

  Yes, this is what I’ll do. I shall be dignified and firm and the antithesis of hysterical – in other words, I shall be the opposite of what Simon is expecting.

  Feeling slightly calmer now that I have a strategy, I kick open our front gate, prepared for tomorrow and the psychological battle that lies ahead. I think I see Simon’s game now. He wants to use my head injury to discredit me so that he can have the job. He tried to win me around with gentle flirting and sweet talk about his concern for me, and by inviting me on dates, but when that didn’t come up with the results he was hoping for he moved on to the next tactic.

  Well, bring it on, buster! I’m fighting fit and once I get back to London I’m going to prove it.

  In the meantime, I’ll try to unwi
nd with a cup of tea and maybe treat myself to another episode of Game of Thrones. Maybe I can use it to inspire me. Picturing myself wielding a broadsword and hacking Simon to ribbons could be very cathartic.

  At least, that’s the plan – but like most of my plans lately it very quickly goes pear-shaped. All thoughts of TV and tea vanish in an instant when a figure uncoils himself from the doorstep and strides down the path towards me as though his life depends upon it.

  “You’re back at last!” says Rafe Thorne, staring down at me from behind his aviators. He holds out his hand. “Come on, Cleo Rose! There’s something I need to show you.”

  I’m still clutching my shopping. Rafe steps forward and gently untangles the heavy bags from my fingers before swinging them into his grasp as easily as though they were made of air. I’m not sure how many shocks I can take in one day. After our conversation in the River Man Inn, where he’d told me that he was no longer the same person as the one I’d met all those years ago, I’d been certain I’d never see him again.

  I’m overwhelmingly pleased to be proven wrong.

  Chapter 21

  “Where are we going?” I ask Rafe as he tows me up the path, out of the garden gate and towards a sleek red car parked at a crazy angle and with one wheel up on the kerb.

  “My place,” Rafe replies. He hasn’t paused to ask if I want to come or stopped to explain why he’s appeared out of the blue to whisk me and my carrier bags away, but he’s supremely confident that I’ll follow him. So far he’s right. I’m practically falling over my feet as he pulls me behind him, too astonished to protest. I’m still reeling from the Simon business and haven’t really got the energy to fight being kidnapped by a determined rock star.

  “We’re going to your place?” I’m bewildered. Until about thirty seconds ago I didn’t think I’d ever see Rafe Thorne again, but now he’s taking me to his riverside rock-star mansion in a car that looks very much like a Ferrari? Whatever happened to the tortured goodbyes, the “I’m not the same person I was” speech and the whole tragic artist drinking himself into oblivion thing?

  It’s official: men are weird.

  Rafe pushes his sunglasses back from his face. His eyes, although shadowed, are burning excitement.

  “Yes, yes, my place. A house on the river where strange girls like to break in?” he teases. “I need to show you something.”

  “What? Please don’t say your etchings,” I warn.

  Rafe grins, a delighted grin that seems to light him up from the inside and completely transforms his face. Suddenly the planes and angles are less sharp, laughter lines fan out from the violet eyes and two deep dimples appear in his cheeks. This is the Rafe who must have been present before Alex died, the Rafe Thorne who made girls swoon with his heartbreaking lyrics and dark good looks; in other words, the very same Rafe Thorne I met all those years ago. All at once I’m lost. I’ll be in that car and off before you can say Cleo Carpenter has lost the plot.

  Rafe tugs my hand impatiently. “Etchings later! This is a surprise.”

  “I don’t like surprises,” I say grudgingly. “They’re more normally known as shocks.”

  He rolls his eyes and looks so much like Alex that I start to laugh in spite of myself. That’s the exact expression Alex pulled when I first told him that ghosts didn’t exist.

  “This is a nice surprise – or at least, I think it is,” he says. “Come on! Live dangerously.”

  Living dangerously is not something I like to do. I like to be measured and methodical, but there’s something about Rafe’s enthusiasm that’s contagious. I glance around, hoping Alex might put in an appearance and explain what’s going on here, but I’m not in luck. Alex, I’m fast learning, has a habit of never being about when I actually need him – but he’s guaranteed to show up when I could really do with being left in peace.

  Come on, Alex, I plead silently. I could do with some backup here. This change in Rafe from taciturn and maudlin to having more energy than the National Grid is rather unsettling. What if he’s taking drugs? Has my reappearance pushed Rafe Thorne over the edge? Have I unwittingly made things a million times worse? I knew I should never have let myself get involved…

  “Don’t look so worried,” Rafe says gently. “This is something good, I promise.” He squeezes my hand. “I’m not over the limit either, I promise. I haven’t touched a drop of booze since you walked into my house last Sunday. I’m not proud of the state I was in that day, Cleo, or how I behaved – and I’m going to do my very best to make sure that never happens again. You were the wake-up call I needed.”

  “Yes!” At last, Alex has arrived; he’s jumping up and down as though on an invisible pogo stick, and beaming at me. “I knew you’d be good for him, Cleo! I knew it! Aren’t you glad you listened to me?”

  I think of all the disruption to my neat and ordered world and am about to shake my head, but suddenly I’m struck by how happy the brothers look. Alex has lost the haunted expression, which is rather ironic, and Rafe’s no longer the brooding Byronic figure from the tabloids. Then I see again the image of Mum smiling at me, and I recall how much I’ve enjoyed spending time with my father. To my surprise, I realise that the answer is a resounding yes.

  A high-pitched beep rouses me from these thoughts. Lights flash on the Ferrari and Rafe opens the door. “Hop in. Your chariot awaits.”

  The red Ferrari is Rafe’s. Of course it is; it’s all textbook rock-star stuff. As are drugs and rock ’n’ roll and sex. Not that I’m thinking about sex – no matter how gorgeous he looks in his battered leather jacket, torn 501s and chunky Timberland boots. No, I’m more concerned about whether or not he’s fit to drive. His parking looks as though Mr Bean was behind the wheel.

  “I’m shit at parking,” Rafe adds, reading my mind so easily that I blush. I hope he can’t read the part about me thinking he’s gorgeous, although I have a horrible feeling he can already tell how I feel. I try to comfort myself with the idea that he’s probably used to girls hurling themselves at him, but this makes me feel even worse.

  “I honestly haven’t had a drink since Sunday,” Rafe assures me. “And before you ask, I never touch drugs, no matter what the papers might have you believe. If I’m acting strangely then it’s because I’m so excited, and if I’m jumpy it’s because I’m exhausted, but that’s all, Christmas Girl. I promise.”

  I believe him. Although he’s still as unshaven and as scruffy as he was when I so rudely awakened him, his hair falling across his face and his clothes definitely crumpled and slept in, there’s a different kind of energy about Rafe today. I can feel it fizzing through his fingertips and imagine it crackling with his every movement as he clasps my hand in his.

  “So, will you come with me?” Rafe asks softly. “Let me show you what it is that’s kept me up for hours on end?”

  He’s looking at me so hopefully that there’s no way I can say no, even though I know I really should unpack the shopping and make my plans to travel back to London ready to confront Simon. I guess my curiosity is piqued: I want to see what’s changed him.

  “I’ll come,” I agree.

  “Great! Hop in!” Rafe opens the door and I swing myself into the low-slung leather seat. Thank goodness I wore thick black tights with my denim skirt and knee-high boots; otherwise our neighbours, busy watching from behind their net curtains, would be treated to a view of my knickers – and I’ve flashed those quite enough for one lifetime.

  “Good luck,” says Alex over my shoulder. “Rafe’s a horrible driver. Cling on and pray that you don’t end up with me!”

  He isn’t kidding. Rafe drives like something out of Wacky Races, only you don’t see me laughing. I know he’s a guy who feels he has nothing to lose, but does he have to take the bends so fast, or stand on the brakes quite so often? Taply-on-Thames flies by in a blur of river and stone before blending with the green lanes of Buckinghamshire, as though someone’s tossed the car into a giant food processor and pressed the high-speed button. Insects s
platter against the windscreen, and the Ferrari feels so low to the road that I can practically touch the tarmac. I would ask him to slow down, but G-force and terror render me speechless. Rafe probably mistakes my open-mouthed horror for excitement. My hands grip the seat so tightly that my knuckles glow through my skin and the cream leather is scored with nail marks. But never mind the car; I’m equally scared by the racing line he takes through the lanes and the speed at which the world flies by. No wonder Alex leapt out that fateful day. By the time Rafe pulls up outside his house with a flourish of gravel and tyres, my head is spinning around more than Kylie in gold hot pants, and my life has flashed before my eyes. Actually, it was rather dull except for the last couple of months...

  Rafe jumps out of the driver’s seat and opens the door for me, catching me when I stagger forth on legs that feel as strong as boiled wool. I will never, ever, moan about playing sardines on the Tube again.

  “Hey, are you OK?” he asks, tightening his grasp on the tops of my arms. “You’ve gone ever such a funny colour.”

  I glance in the wing mirror and a wide-eyed reflection stares back at me. My face is so white that my freckles stand out like bruises.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Rafe continues, still holding onto me. Ironically, Alex is standing next to him as he says his, his cheeky ghostly grin far less scary than his brother’s driving. “Didn’t you enjoy the drive? That car’s not been out for months. I only used it because I wanted to get to you quickly.”

  “Put it away again,” I suggest. “Maybe get a push bike?”

  “Is this a clever way of saying you don’t like my driving? Look, I’m safe. I did a track day at Silverstone with an F1 coach. He said I had talent.”

  “Lewis Hamilton must be shaking in his boots,” I say drily. “All you need is a Pussycat Doll in the passenger seat and we wouldn’t be able to tell you apart. Look, don’t let me get in the way; go ahead and call Bernie Ecclestone.”

  Rafe’s wide eyes, those unusual violet irises ringed with black as though an artist has lovingly traced them with a fine liner, twinkle at me.