by Rae Shaw
They were both there. He was lifting the baby out of her arms; Mrs Haynes had been feeding the child. He left the room with Evey. Hettie rested her head against the couch. The room relied on the dim light of lamps, which projected tentacle rays, reflecting off surfaces and zigzagging over the glass-top coffee table. The shadows obscured the finer details. Hettie was bathed in a warm glow where the beams crossed. Her hair was bundled into a bird’s nest bun. She was relaxed, lounging in baggy pants, quite unlike the upmarket attire she wore when out and about. Her eyelids drooped. Then, abruptly, she stirred.
The binoculars nearly slipped out of Julianna's hands. Mrs Haynes was wide awake. A small smile descended over her face. Her bra remained tangled around her waist. She hadn’t bothered to replace the cup over her breast. Her nipple was invisible under the t-shirt.
Mrs Haynes, Hettie, goddammit, what to call the woman, turned to face the other end of the room, which wasn’t visible to Julianna. She giggled and covered her open mouth with her hand. With little decorum, she slid along the leather sofa until she was flat on her back and opened her arms, creating the space to receive him.
Watching the lovers embrace with roving hands and intertwined limbs, Julianna gorged on the fortune of another. Alex had not shown one instance of the passion she was witnessing across the immaculate lawn. As Chris said, they had their ways. They were adroit lovers. In the privacy of their home, they put aside formalities and frolicked like teenagers.
And what was she? A concerned individual undertaking a covert act of surveillance or a voyeur, spying on her boss as if he was a common criminal? Any of her mentors would have slapped her wrist and told her she had missed the bigger picture. Haynes was a CEO and not a romantic hero who smothered his wife in an open display of unbridled affection. The conversation she had overheard in the car earlier in the week now made perfect sense. Hettie Haynes wasn’t afraid of her husband. She knew exactly what “sorting out” meant. Her hand hadn’t been shaking with fear, but excitement. Jackson had dashed home to comfort his wife, but chose to appear aloof and detached in the presence of his newest driver. An intensely private man who hated the limelight and, having created a tough boss image at work, he wasn’t going to ruin his reputation by fawning over his wife in the middle of the day. It made more sense than the ridiculous post-Alex scenario Julianna had hurriedly concocted.
The blow, when she allowed herself to feel it, was a devastating as the one she had given Alex. Still on her knees, she bent over, hugging the flayed pit of her stomach and thought of the hours she would need to spend in the cellar.
Backing away into the darkness, she stumbled over hidden roots before finding a path. She hated what she had become. Hated the idea she had lost it. Wiping the perspiration from her brow, the dirt from her knees, she switched off the light and punched the keypad code for the gatehouse.
Draper made no comment on her prolonged absence.
‘You were right – foxes.’ She pretended to read a book for the rest of the shift. She didn’t turn a page.
The stupid exercise she had engaged in had backfired badly. Far from demonstrating exemplary investigative skills, she’d misinterpreted the facts, insinuated emotions that weren’t there and come up with her version of a carefree wife ridiculed by an uninspiring husband. It was exactly why she had left her last job. She wasn’t fit for purpose any longer.
Blaming Alex was wrong too. Her natural cynicism had dragged her into this cock-up. She should just do her job – driving fast cars in slow traffic interspersed with measly surveillance operations. It wasn’t on the scale of anti-terrorism or serious international money laundering, but it paid the mortgage and, without Alex's income, she was struggling.
2
Mark
The elevator doors opened to reveal Jackson Haynes, a man best known for sporting a tailor-made suit with monographed pockets and gold cufflinks, and not sweatpants and t-shirt. He leaned against the mirrored wall, towel coiled around his neck, and swept aside a lock of damp hair with his manicured hand. Girded with the kind of muscles that belonged on a dedicated athlete, Jackson boasted without requiring the use of words. He acknowledged Mark with a curl of his thin lips.
Mark felt inadequate and small. He would never be that fit nor was he the kind of person who spent every morning lifting weights and running nowhere on a treadmill. Apparently his boss was just that and Mark’s heart sank a little as he wondered if he should take up a new hobby to impress Jackson.
Wiping his sweaty face with the edge of the towel, Jackson waved him into the lift. It should be an auspicious start and Mark needed plenty of good omens. He wore his grandfather's watch; a scratched talisman he kept with him in breach of his belief that superstitions were utter nonsense.
‘Mark. Your first day?’ Jackson stepped to one side. Mark’s hands were full and he hung his briefcase off his little finger.
‘Yes,’ Mark replied. Should he have added an ingratiating “sir”? Strike a balance, he decided. Keep it formal, polite, but casual, too. He tapped his floor button, just managing to reach it with his thumb, then propped his briefcase between his feet. His arms ached from carrying the cardboard box.
‘I must try the gym.’ It wasn’t his thing. He liked to frequent the terraces of a football stadium back in Manchester, but now, away from familiar territory, downtime was about the comfy sofa and a bottle of beer. Without a car, he was lumbered with public transport and attacks of inertia.
‘You’re an early starter, why not?’ Jackson said.
True, but then that was because sleep wasn’t always forthcoming. He stifled a yawn. He searched Jackson’s face for some trace of fatigue and was disappointed – there wasn’t a shadow blemishing his skin.
‘Mornings are nice and quiet for working,’ he said instead.
Jackson guffawed. ‘Not in my house. Evey was screaming the place down, then Noah.’
Mark had forgotten about the pregnancy. He usually fixated on her emerald eyes and not her swollen belly. ‘Congratulations on the birth of your daughter.’
‘Hettie, the poor girl, is shattered with constant feeding. Things are settling down now she’s past six weeks. Thankfully. Speaking of settling in, Hettie and I would like you to join us for a quiet evening meal at Fasleigh. I’ll email you the details. Some friends of mine to introduce you to.’
Mark bounced up onto the balls of his feet. The weight of the cardboard box forgotten for a moment. ‘That would be fantastic.’
The lift jolted and the doors opened.
Jackson’s lips smiled. His shrewd cornflower eyes didn’t. He possessed an aristocratic sharpness in all of his features; youthful good-looks chiselled with faint lines of wisdom.
His boss held the lift doors open while he gathered his possessions. ‘Thanks again, er, Mr Haynes. I look forward to it.’ Meeting Jackson Haynes in any circumstance was always a step in the right direction. At least so far. ‘Send my regards to Hettie.’
‘Will do.’ Jackson punched a button and disappeared behind the lift doors.
The invite to dinner was born out of a meeting months ago when Mark had indulgently pawed Hettie in a West End bar. Jackson hadn’t been there and she had arrived with a gaggle of girlfriends. A hen night or something. Mark had wandered in with a group of unremarkable work colleagues, who had subsequently made their excuses and left him glued to the big screen, pint in hand, watching a lengthy analysis of a football match. He had been a little drunk. Sidling up to Hettie, filled with optimism that he might pull such a gorgeous woman, he had failed to notice the wedding ring on her finger or Gary Maybank eyeballing him from the side-lines. She had bought him a drink and taken his business card, which had disappeared into her purse. As she had risen from the bar seat to re-join her friends, he put his arm around her waist to steady her. Gary had charged across the floor and rugby tackled him to the floor. Hettie had been mortified and berated Gary for leaping in when it wasn't necessary. Her apologies had embarrassed Mark because his intentions hadn't
been honourable – he fancied her rotten. She was too sweet to hang out in those kinds of bars – Jackson owned a snazzy nightclub somewhere, didn’t he?
That was how he met Hettie. How he caught Jackson's attention and became her accountant. Gary might have been scolded by Hettie but later she told Jackson about the drunk in the bar who slotted his arm around his pregnant wife. Mark should have been sporting a black eye after the encounter, but instead everything snowballed into a peculiar job interview.
Mark bounded into his new office and nearly collided with the cleaner. She jumped and clutched a gloved hand to her chest.
‘Bloody hell,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t do that, creeping into rooms.’
‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.’ He sidestepped the cleaning trolley.
She snorted. ‘Oh, not to worry. I’m just not use to anyone being about at this time of day.’ A waft of fresh bleach and stale tobacco followed her as she moved about the small office.
‘A necessity of your job.’ He placed the cardboard box and laptop case on the desk.
She was a talker – not what he wanted first thing in the morning. He opted for minimal responses. She clucked her tongue and bustled around the room with a duster. The dots on her sleeve blurred as she chased phantom cobwebs. The bare room was spotless.
‘This room has been clear for a couple of weeks. So it’s yours now?’
‘Yes, new job, so an early start. I expect it’ll wear off.’ Desperate for his routine caffeine fix, he followed her out of the door into the communal office in search of a drink.
She weaved the cleaning trolley between the cubicles, heading towards the service lift, and left him by the vending machine. He returned to his office and place the Styrofoam cup on the desk. Rummaging in the cardboard box, he removed a strip of shiny black plastic embossed with his name and slid it into the empty slot on the outside of the door:
MARK CLEWER
He stood back to admire it, then, returning to the office, he spotted picture hooks along one wall. He hung two framed pictures opposite his desk. One he’d brought with him from Manchester, the other was a more recent acquisition: a small watercolour painted specifically for him. The artist’s signature in the corner of the painting was barely visible: “H Haynes”.
At nine o’clock, Mark gave a briefing to his new colleagues – an enthusiastic team of three. Their commitment was important; he would have to prove himself worthy if he wanted the best projects landing on his desk. Their work was split into two areas: internal embezzlement and dodgy clients with suspicious accounts: money laundering was usually top of the list. The latter was something with which he was familiar, but he didn’t explain to the others why.
Mark had moved to London in self-imposed exile after the incident in Manchester. Snapped up by a specialist recruiter, the spell at Daneswan, a small subsidiary, led to a change in fortune and a swift transfer to Haynes’ top-notch forensic accountancy team; a reward for tidying up Mrs Haynes’s account. He had been promised the forensic role by the one man who could ensure he would get it: Jackson Haynes.
Mark’s first case was an internal one and involved the car fleet manager. The man accused of embezzling was responsible for keeping the fuel tanks topped up; a routine internal audit had flagged discrepancies. Mark read the file and made notes. It wasn’t the first time he had seen this type of fraud. The audacity of some never surprised him; criminals lurked in all the dark corners of life. The manager would likely lose his job. Many corporations would go out of their way to hide unwanted publicity, but not so at Haynes Financials: the perpetrators were publicly vilified in court. Mark imagined Jackson had had a hand in shaping the policy.
However, to make his case, Mark needed the illegal act to be witnessed. A paper trail alone wouldn’t be as convincing as a photograph or audio account of the illicit transactions. Mark wasn’t cut out for hanging around petrol stations with a long lens camera. For one thing, he lacked a car. He needed a field operative to catch the man red-handed. The suggestion by one of the team was to speak to the head of the security team, Chris Moran, and ask for one of his operatives. The meeting concluded, and alone at his desk, he pulled up Moran’s profile and accompanying mug shot in the company directory – a torpedo shaped head with a granite face. Mark suspected the request would be granted with a begrudging glare.
His mobile sang an unmelodious tune, which he had specifically picked for a purpose. She had to ring him, on his first day. He flicked the mobile to speaker phone then slid it a good distance away from his hand. His fingers clutched a pen.
‘Mum.’
‘I rang you yesterday.’ No hello or how are you. Bloody typical.
‘What do you want, Mum?’
‘When are you going to send me the two hundred you promised?’ She whined like a teenager.
Always money. It wasn’t as if he was rolling in it. According to her, she hadn’t a penny left even with the two jobs she worked. Lawyers cost, she liked to remind him, which was a gripe at his preferred profession. He never regretted his choice of career. Numbers were more polite than words.
‘Give me a chance, will you. It’s my first day. I’m trying to make an impression.’
A lengthy pause. She wasn’t impressed. Deidre had to be the most important person in his life.
‘Fine.’ She sniffed. The fake disappointment washed over Mark. She couldn’t act.
‘I’ll transfer some money this evening. Just a hundred though. I’ve taken out a deposit on a new apartment.’ He instantly regretted mentioning the flat.
‘Another one? You’re always moving.’
Away from you, he nearly said. Instead, he chewed the end of the pen. ‘It’s on the bus route. If you want me to splash out and buy a car…’
‘No, no. Save your money, darling.’
The “darling” made his toes curl. He hated it. Hated the falseness of her tone, the way she delivered affection in little packages as if it made up for all the crap she threw at him.
‘Don’t forget to find a solicitor. There must be good ones in London. Better than up here.’
‘God, Mum. It doesn’t make any difference.’ He punctuated each word staccato style. ‘If anything, they’ll be more expensive.’
Deidre clung to the hope new evidence was around the corner. She fruitlessly pursued missing connections, the names of her husband’s backstabbing mates who supposedly had slithered away to secret hideouts in London. Mark’s optimism had vanished years ago. Nobody spoke up for his father. Whoever held the clues to Bill Clewer’s guilt or innocence remained shamelessly silent or petrified. The whole bunch of them were scared, not of the law, but of what life had turned them into – career criminals. Clearing his father’s name wasn’t top of anyone’s list.
‘Well, let’s hope that means something.’ She didn’t bother to say goodbye.
Releasing his grip on the pen, Mark reached for the office telephone and dialled a number.
~ * ~
She had taken up residence in his head – a grating echo of her voice – and the reverberations refused to budge. Grabbing his overcoat, Mark escaped to a cafe two streets away. He substituted the irritating sound with the remorseless milieu of traffic, then the eruption of steam pulsing out of the coffee machine intervened.
The queue snaked its way around the chairs and tables to the counter. He picked up partial conversations; the ear bashing of an absent colleague or problematic client, the slump in the stock markets. He ordered a coffee, then waited for his panini to be toasted before spotting an empty table. He made a beeline for it. A young woman pivoted on her seat and jolted his arm. The coffee spilt out of his cup and splashed her leg and table.
‘Oh God! So sorry,’ she said. The hem of her short skirt was high and the stream of coffee ran along the elastic lace of her hold-up.
Mark froze. The blunt tip of her nose stuck out from under her fringe of mocha curls. Her melodious voice had lost its adolescent tones.
His little sister
Ellen had just spilt his coffee over her leg.
She winced with her head still bowed, apparently oblivious to his identity. ‘Oh shit.’
If he walked out of the café right then, she might never notice him. She was more interested in dabbing the spillage with her napkin.
But this was his sister.
‘Are you okay, Ellen?’ he asked.
She went rigid, just as he had done. Without looking up, she said, ‘Mark?’
He moved around the table and faced her.
The unsightly spots and limp hair – the companions of an undeveloped teenager – were absent. In their place, a young woman had emerged. It was Ellen, but not the girl he remembered. That girl had been a sallow, almost pitiful child, who had slunk about the house with a permanent scowl. Now she had wavy hair, which she had cut short, and her eyebrows were shaped into crescents, arching over mahogany irises. Her fingernails were elongated by extensions that glittered as she swept her hand over her leg. The portrait of maturity continued with her pencil skirt and jacket: the classic tailoring worn in nearly every office of the City of London. She’d always had the potential to blossom into something attractive, but he’d never anticipated that an office suit would do the trick.
‘That must have hurt.’ He backed away, opting for anything that avoided a kiss or a hug. ‘I’ll get some ice for you.’
Mark hijacked the front of the queue to ask for ice. The disapproving barista slammed a plastic cup of ice down on the counter. Mark wrapped a few cubes up in a napkin and handed it to Ellen.
‘Keep it on. The longer the better.’
Her hand shook as she pressed the napkin onto the stained patch.
Another wince. ‘It’s cold,’ she murmured.