by Carol Smith
“’Bye, sweetie,” whispered Sally into the aged ear. “Keep your pecker up and I’ll see you very soon.”
Eleanor, her eyes on the keyboard, let it be known with a queenly wave that Sally was dismissed, and launched herself into song.
All three of her flatmates were there when Sally arrived home, huddled disconsolately in the kitchen, in the throes of one of their interminable discussions about how to spend the evening. They brightened visibly when Sally rolled in. She supposed it was flattering, this puppyish devotion, but it was seriously beginning to get on her nerves. God, but they were boring. As usual, Beth had been right. They were boys, not men, and these days Sally wanted something a lot more challenging.
It was a toss-up between Aliens, Superman II, or bowling in Streatham. (Please!) Or a quick trot down the road to the Hansom Cab which was, of course, Jeremy’s choice. Once Sally would not have hesitated to fall in at his heels but tonight she was simply not in the mood. She told them to go without her as she wanted to wash her hair then, brushing aside their incredulous looks, grabbed the radio and an apple and stomped upstairs to her room to read Cosmopolitan and brood.
Lovesick, that was what she was. She’d read about it often enough, usually in these pages, but had always dismissed the concept as being a bit of a myth, the product of some cynical adman’s brain, aimed at boosting infinite sales of pheromone-related junk. The one thing Sally had never lacked, throughout her troubled adolescence, was confidence in her own extraordinary pulling power. The highlight of her time at the convent had to do with a wild break for freedom one giddy summer weekend, when the police had intercepted her hitchhiking and returned her, not a bit contrite, to the disapproving hand-wringing of her veiled jailors. But that was just a lark, put down to adolescent high spirits and eventually forgiven.
Whereas here she sat now, a crumpled mass of indecision, heart pounding, stomach churning, ears on red alert for a telephone that never rang and definitely off her food. Pathetic. She lobbed the half-chewed apple into the industrial-size Maxwell House tin that served her as a wastepaper basket, curled herself up under the duvet and cried.
• • •
By lunchtime next day Sally and Beth were best friends again, as was inevitable, and Sally was sitting in Beth’s kitchen, feet up on the Aga, telling funny stories and acting normal. Probably the greatest gift Beth had given her was this insight into female friendship, something Sally had never ever encountered before. Beth believed her close women friends should come first and that no man was worth falling out over. She believed in sisterhood and fair play and now she was demonstrating both those ideals. Look at her and Georgy; look at her and Vivienne. What a saint!
There was nothing remotely dog-in-the-mangerish about Beth, that was one of her special qualities. She loved Gus and always would but lost no sleep over Georgy’s frenzied pursuit of him, other than her concern about Georgy getting hurt. In the gentlest of ways, she had tried to head Georgy off but Georgy was too thick-skinned to take notice, so all Beth could do now was listen, and be on hand with a box of tissues when the shit hit the inevitable fan. Sally thought she was a sucker, but that was Beth’s business.
And the same, oddly enough, applied to Vivienne. To Sally’s way of thinking Beth had every reason to detest Oliver’s wife, to avoid her at all costs and block her out of her life. Yet it had only taken one social occasion to turn her into a friend and now, unbelievably, Beth was actually talking about damping down the affair out of an idiot feeling of misplaced guilt and not wanting to hurt a woman she scarcely knew, who was too obtuse to recognize what was going on right under her own selfish nose. Weird, as Imogen would say.
Sally’s own philosophy was starkly simple. If a woman couldn’t keep her man happy, then he was fair game. She did not believe in monogamy or permanence and worked on the principle that if she fancied it, she’d screw it—no sweat. What was wrong with grabbing a little animal pleasure along the way? If God had intended us not to fornicate, he would not have created the coil or the Pill.
But none of this need she mention to Beth, who was free to dream on if that was how she got her kicks. And she had to admit, to her own surprise, that some of her happiest moments had been spent here in Beth’s kitchen. For Beth, food was an all-embracing panacea; Gus always joked that in some earlier life she must have been a Jewish mother. The moment the doorbell rang, no matter what the hour, Beth was poised with corkscrew in hand and a plate of some homemade delicacy to fill the gap while she threw together a delicious meal.
Today was no exception. It was Sunday morning and although Sally had only called less than an hour ago, the room was filled with the most wondrously appetizing aromas and the table already set for five. Sally leaned back, a drink and a homemade cheese straw in either hand, and watched Beth cook. A Mozart flute concerto was playing on the hi-fi, the church bells were ringing from across the close and all seemed very much right with the world. Just for now.
The wicket gate creaked and impatient fingers drummed an urgent tattoo on the window. Imogen looked up from her Sunday supplement and dived to the door with a yelp of delight. Sally turned with a welcoming grin, expecting to see Gus, whom she liked a lot, then froze to find Duncan looming in the doorway, beaming down benevolently at all of them.
“Hi there!” Beth at the stove wagged an oven glove at him and stretched out her cheek to receive his kiss, while Imogen jumped excitedly up and down, bombarding him with questions about some wretched kittens. Sally stayed right where she was, frozen into silence.
Duncan produced from the pockets of his battered leather jacket a couple of bottles of fine red burgundy and placed them on the table.
“You did say red?” He looked round for a corkscrew so that he could let them breathe.
“Mmm, nice,” said Beth approvingly as she glanced at the labels. “Australian.”
“Got to back the old country,” said Duncan, tossing his jacket on to the window seat and rolling up his denim sleeves.
Sally was mesmerized, glad she had had the foresight to wash her hair. Close to, he really was the most extraordinarily attractive man, with his smooth brown skin, shaggy hair, and those searching blue eyes she found so disconcerting. He was wearing faded jeans and boots like hers and she could not drag her eyes from the power of his wrists as he eased out the corks with the minimum of effort. Then she glanced up and saw how he was looking at Beth. She had not been wrong; it was clear on his face.
Beth, wrapped in an enveloping chef’s apron of white cotton, was working away at the stove basting the beef, shoving loose strands of hair from her sweaty forehead, flushed with the heat from the open oven door. She looked gross to Sally—fat and frumpy, frankly middle-aged. Yet Duncan looked as if he would like to eat her. A cold hand clutched at Sally’s heart and she banged off upstairs to the loo.
Duncan settled into a sturdy leather chair and stretched out his long legs on the other side of the stove, skillfully balancing himself with the toe of one boot resting lightly on the rail. They had only spoken for the first time yesterday, yet he looked as though he had been at home here all his life. The thing about Duncan was that he seemed always to be laughing. Merriment creased the corners of his eyes, turning them into cobalt slits, and his teeth shone white from his grizzled beard as he lazily watched his woman doing her virtuoso best with a gleaming joint of beef. Cooking, as only Beth knew how, for the people she loved most in the world.
“How is everyone’s glass?” she asked. “Duncan, help yourself. Lunch will be ready in twenty minutes so there’s time for another one all round if you’d care to fix them. Vodka’s on the side, Clamato juice is in the fridge and Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco and all the other gubbins are lined up on the dresser.”
She turned to smile at him, pushing back her hair with the back of one hand.
“I assume you know how to do it,” she said.
“Me? I’ll have you know I’ve hung out in some of the best bars of the world. Worked in them too.”
<
br /> Duncan set to work.
“Imogen has a Virgin,” warned Beth. “Everything else but hold the vodka.”
“Mum!” objected Imogen.
“Not till you’re older, you know the rules. You can have a glass of Duncan’s wine with your lunch.”
Sally was back and watching. Bloody hell! a voice in her head was screeching. He loves her, I can see it in his eyes. I could kill him for this. Or her.
“Is Gus coming?” she asked hopefully, eyeing the five set places.
“No, only Georgy,” said Beth, heaving the meat back into the inferno. “She called just before you did.”
• • •
When they were all seated round the plain pine table and Beth had served the roast, with sweet-glazed carrots, fresh garden peas with mint, and butter-crisp new potatoes, Duncan gave them Eleanor’s news.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of rotten tidings,” he said, “but I’m afraid I’ve just heard something fairly grim.”
All eyes turned to him. He sat playing with the pepper mill as he groped for words.
“It seems Catherine’s death was not entirely natural.” His eyes focused on each of them in turn. “She was dying, but not quite yet.”
Dead silence round the table; even Imogen stopped chewing.
“What happened?” asked Beth.
“She took an overdose of the morphine sulphate she was given to ease the pain.”
“Cripes!” said Imogen, mouth full. “You mean she topped herself?”
Beth, incredibly shocked, leaned forward and reached out a restraining hand. Duncan was still fiddling with the pepper mill; there was obviously more to come.
“I popped in to see Eleanor this morning,” he said, “when I picked up the car. The pills were safely in the cabinet in the bathroom when Eleanor left, just after six, for a concert at the Fairfield Hall, but the bottle was there on her bedside table next morning. Half empty. And Catherine was dead. Eleanor looked in on her at midnight when she got home but she seemed to be sleeping so she didn’t disturb her. She didn’t even turn on the light.”
His eyes are like cornflowers, thought Sally as Duncan looked at them each in turn. Everyone was silent. Catherine’s death had been shocking enough; this was worse.
Beth turned to Sally in surprise.
“But I thought you were with her that last night, Sal. How come you weren’t there when Eleanor got home?”
Sally hesitated.
“Well, I was and I wasn’t,” she said cautiously, choosing her words.
“What do you mean?” Beth’s tone was unusually sharp.
“Well, I know I promised Eleanor I’d hang on there till she got back from her concert, and I really meant to do that even though . . .”
Beth raised one eyebrow in query, her eyes suddenly cold.
“. . . even though I had a date,” said Sally lamely. “She was very restless so I made her some chamomile tea and was wondering whether to give her a couple of those painkillers a bit early, to see if they would help her sleep. I couldn’t see it would make much difference, she was so sick, poor darling. I mean, for pity’s sake, she was dying.”
She turned to Duncan, suddenly close to tears, but he was looking at Beth.
“And then?” asked Beth, dispassionate as a judge.
“And then,” said Sally slowly, “someone else showed up.”
They all stared but Sally, suddenly milking the situation for all it was worth, was not going to be hurried.
“She had told me she was expecting someone, a late-night visitor. Got herself all dolled up for him she did, with blusher, eyeliner, the lot. So I thought I’d give her a break. Poor love, she didn’t have much fun at the best of times. The least I could do was help her indulge a fantasy.”
“But it wasn’t a fantasy?”
“No. It was someone who let himself in with his own key just as she said he would. I was amazed.”
They all stared at her. “Who?”
Sally paused dramatically. “Who do you think?” She looked at their spellbound faces and laughed. “Addison Harvey, of course. Who else? The one true love of poor old Catherine’s life. Only she called him Tom.”
“And then?”
“I said I would hang on till Eleanor got home but he said not to bother. So I handed him the pills and left. After all, why keep a doctor and bark yourself?”
“So how come he’s not said anything? And why was Catherine alone when her mother did get back?” asked Beth.
“Don’t know. It did seem a bit odd at the time, him being so much at home there and having his own key, but he was so authoritative I didn’t question it. And besides . . .”
“You had a date.”
She nodded.
“He did say something to Eleanor,” said Duncan. “But not until the next day when she called him in hysterics and he came over to confirm the cause of death. He told her Catherine had ODed on morphine sulphate but not, as far as I know, that he had been there that night.”
They all looked at each other and shrugged. The truth was, it really wasn’t their business. If the doctor and the mother were au fait with the situation, then let it rest. Only one thing was certain; whatever had happened in Catherine’s final hours had been for the best, there could be no doubting that.
• • •
“Was she telling the truth?” asked Beth much later. “And if so, shouldn’t someone be informing the police?”
Duncan shifted her weight slightly off his right arm, which was getting cramped.
“No,” he said after a moment’s thought. “What’s done’s done and the poor woman was dying anyway. Why put Eleanor through any more distress? If Harvey chose to take the law into his own hands, then that’s a doctor’s prerogative. It was a medical decision and a brave one in the circumstances. Don’t you agree?”
He bent his head slightly to kiss her on the nose.
“Maybe Catherine even colluded. They were pretty close. We’ll never know, so let’s keep it to ourselves.”
The others were long gone, Imogen on her rollerblades to the park with Sally, Georgy to sleep off her gargantuan hangover from the night before. Beth and Duncan had cleared the debris from the table, rinsed the dishes, and were now stretched out comfortably on the kitchen sofa, her head resting on his chest, listening to the comforting background thrum of the dishwasher.
“Happy?” he asked after a while, tightening his grip and blowing gently into her hair.
“Blissful.” She breathed in his warm, clean, masculine smell and felt an ache of desire course right through her.
So why don’t you take me to bed?
But she knew that this time there was no rush. Because, at last, she had found a real man, one she could trust. And that was worth waiting any amount of time for.
Chapter Thirty-six
Sylvia Kirsch pushed aside the plate-glass patio doors and stepped barefoot onto the lawn. Even at seven in the morning, the heat was rising though the grass was still deliciously cool with the damp from the sprinklers that were spraying shimmering spider’s webs of silver over the lawn and its surrounding beds. She walked the few yards to the poolside table where the pool boy was opening a yellow and white umbrella to protect the breakfasters from the sun, while a Mexican maid in a blue linen dress arranged coffee, croissants, and freshly squeezed orange juice on a crisp white cloth. By nine the sun would be at its hottest. Now was the time to enjoy breakfast al fresco.
Sylvia relaxed with her juice and the papers and watched the lone swimmer finishing his fifty laps. At sixty-two, her husband was still in excellent shape and she loved to watch this early-morning workout on the rare occasions their timetables coincided long enough for them to snatch a meal together. Emmanuel Kirsch rose powerful and dripping from the pool, snatched a towel from the tiles as he climbed up the steps, and stood in front of his wife like a great shaggy beast, shaking cold drops all over her linen shorts from his thick silver hair. She laughed and fended him off as he bent his
dripping head to nuzzle her cheek.
“Lay off, will you! I just had my hair done!” Then, more soberly, “What time’s your flight?”
Emmanuel slung the towel around his burly neck, slid his shoulders into a toweling wrap, and sank into a canvas chair while Sylvia poured his coffee. He liked it hot and strong and he savored this first cup more than any other, particularly since the doctor had made him cut down his daily intake and had put him on a rigid low-cholesterol diet. He glanced at his silver Rolex.
“Noon. I’m dining at the Yale Club tonight with Ed, then hot-footing it down to Washington tomorrow for the hearing. Should be there—oh, three, four days—and all being well, on a flight to London before the end of the week.”
“And how long will you be there?” He traveled so much, it was a joke between them. Sometimes, she said, he sounded like a PanAm pilot. She longed to go with him but knew enough, after nine years, not to suggest it; not when he was on a case as serious as this. Already his mind was veering away from her, occupied with the complexities of the latest murder case and the witnesses he hoped to be able to interview in Europe.
“As long as it takes. Hopefully just a few days, but you never can tell. If you’d wanted a nine-to-five old man you should have married an accountant. Or a PanAm pilot.”
He leaned across to kiss her cheek.
“I’ve got to get back for the judicial hearings on Thursday week. Right now, that’s about as precise as I can be.”
Emmanuel was at the height of his career and showed no signs of ever slacking off. Despite the heart murmur and the cholesterol scare, Sylvia had no intention of nagging him to slow down, because that was the essence of the man she had married, the man who had swept her off her feet in one dramatic meeting.