A Chance Encounter

by Rae Shaw

  21

  Julianna

  WEDNESDAY EVENING

  Julianna opened the front door and greeted Mark with a lengthy kiss that left his ears a shade of pink.

  He licked his lips. ‘Honey?’ he queried.

  ‘Honey and mustard pork chops.’

  He slipped past her and deposited a corked bottle in the kitchen. ‘Delicious.’

  She poured him a glass of wine. When Alex had brought home an extravagantly priced bottle, she had frowned upon it. How perspectives changed when the right man stood in the kitchen offering to help chop the onions. Before he had arrived, she had offloaded the pin-stripe trouser suit, and donned leggings and a baggy jumper that hung off one shoulder. If he expected bra straps, he wouldn't find them.

  However, Mark showed no interest in slipping his hand under her clothes. It disappointed her, but she said nothing. After the meal, he fetched his files and scattered them onto the dining room table amongst the dirty dishes and wine glasses. They had two days left to explain the irregularities Mark had uncovered.

  ‘What do you think Mr Haynes will do with the information, assuming we find something illegal?’ she asked, circling dates with a red marker pen.

  ‘Send it to the appropriate authorities.’

  ‘People’s jobs could be at stake, but you know that.’ There was no need to mention Haydocks.

  Mark tossed his pen down. ‘So what? It's their choice to involve themselves in illegal activities.’ Still a raw nerve.

  ‘No excuses?’ She topped up her wine glass. Mark covered his with the palm of his hand. One glass and he had stopped drinking.

  ‘None.’ He eyed the bare flesh of her neck and his fingers twitched.

  ‘And with me? What if you found out I lie about things?’ She hadn’t told him about her conversation with Chris, nor the threats to the Haynes, nor the potential links to Haydocks.

  ‘Why would you lie?’ He gathered together his files. ‘And about what?’

  ‘That I wasn’t interested in meeting your sister, for one thing.’ Part truth. She was concerned enough to want to meet her.

  ‘You don't need to meet her to know that she's okay. Ellen can look after herself. She's determined to make her own way in life,’ Mark said with unguarded annoyance.

  She would have to try harder. ‘But you said she drinks too much. That she has this self-destructive streak. Doesn't that concern you?’

  Mark fingered his wine glass. ‘I can't do anything more for her,’ he said quietly. ‘I never could back then, so why should I now?’

  There was something almost mean in his tone. She had heard it a few times now. She was starting to worry about this invisible Ellen. Reacting to something showing in her face, Mark softened the hard lines around his forehead and eyes.

  ‘Don't worry,’ he said. ‘She's going to Ireland this weekend to start new life digging up old bits of stone and pottery. If she's happy, then who I am to stop her? She's got this friend and he's the one telling her what to do.’

  ‘You haven't met this friend of hers?’

  His impatience was showing through the veil of politeness. ‘No. But she's known him for a few years. She's not your problem. None of my family is your problem.’

  Julianna shifted backwards in her seat. Mark's dismissal of his sister was icy, uncaring, and unlike him in many ways. ‘No, you're right, it isn't.’

  Jackson wanted her to solidify connections, ratify them with evidence. He wasn't interested in the periphery of Mark's life, and Ellen easily fell into that grey area. Given Mark's gruff response, she had probed enough for one evening. The lie went unchallenged.

  His broad shoulders loosened, transforming him from edgy to calmer, friendlier. With no resentment, and clearly tired, Mark slouched in his seat with his shirt tails hanging out, oozing desirability. The shift in attention to her was a welcome interlude. He didn't need alcohol, he needed her, that was obvious from the way his eyes tracked her every move.

  ‘What do you want to do this evening?’ she asked. ‘In the bedroom, I mean.’

  ‘I know what you meant.’ He grabbed her hand. ‘Let's go find out.’

  He surprised her. She’d not seen him so keen for a while. He was making a point, that he was able to push aside his troubles and concentrate on her, and what she wanted. He also animated a gentler side and one that she might come to like. Afterwards, he spooned his body around hers.

  ‘You’re a very sweet lover,’ she said into the darkness. The word 'lover' tasted delicious in her mouth. She hadn't intended to call him that.

  He mumbled, a strangely courteous, ‘You’re welcome,’ as if he had provided her with a service, then he fell asleep.

  ~ * ~

  Coffee beans were scattered around the coffee machine, which was cold. She swept them into her palm and picked up where he had left off. He was talking, somewhere, his voice carrying up from below. She was surprised he managed to find reception down there.

  She hovered near the cellar door.

  Mark spoke hoarsely, as close to tears as a man might come and not shed them. ‘I’m not a coward, or impotent. And I’m sorry Ellen was the one to tell you.’

  He might have slept next to Julianna undisturbed, but come the morning, he had woken to the persistent trills of his mother’s texts. Ellen had broken the silence, not him.

  ‘But what she said is true. He’s guilty, Mum.’

  Only his mother could ruin the start of a day. Julianna understood what was going on. What Deidre lacked was guile; the cunning of an intellectual mind. A sledgehammer was Deidre's approach. According to Mark, her neighbours and friends would never know this side of her. They were party to her kindness, the sweet wife of a wronged man, who popped around for tea and left hours later, her bruised ego rescued by their sympathy.

  ‘Mum, it’s the truth,’ Mark said, hoarsely. ‘He took two knives with him, he planted the other. It was pre-meditated.’

  Mark’s patter of pacing feet stopped; Julianna edged away from the door, keeping her shadow out of the stairwell.

  ‘You knew he was in with the crooks. What did you expect? You can’t go on thinking he’s going to be found innocent. You’ll have to go see him and tell him to change his plea, take the advice of the parole board, and hope he gets out on licence eventually.’

  An unwelcome wave of nausea lodged itself in her stomach. Mark was probably feeling much worse.

  ‘An alibi?’ he said, despairingly.

  Deidre wasn't seeking a simple denial of guilt, she was suggesting perjury.

  ‘Mum, that isn’t going to work; he argued for self-defence. He admitted he was there.’ There was a soft thump. He had landed a gentle blow.

  The punch bag was strung up and ready to be battered. Her therapy was in his easy reach, and not hers. She hadn’t realised how enticing it might be to somebody else, and she had spoken so often of her need to the point Mark had questioned whether it was appropriate – what if she lost control and used something else?

  ‘Mum. That is it.’ He hammered out the words into the icy basement. Down there he could shout, believing Julianna was asleep upstairs. ‘He’s guilty! If I can accept the truth, you can too. I’m not going to see my father again. He lied to both of us. I’m finished. Done. I’ve got a life and I'm not wasting it on him. Or you.’

  She contemplated whether he wanted rescuing, but down there wasn’t the best place to comfort him. It was horribly like a prison cell.

  Something smashed, the impact of an object against a harder surface. What that was, she guessed, had been in his hand. The aggressive thump of fist against leather was a familiar sound. She winced; she was tempted to call out and warn him, but he would find out she had been eavesdropping. Instead, she removed herself back upstairs and hid under the bedcovers, pretending to sleep.

  He detoured round the bed and slipped into the bathroom. Rising for the second time, Julianna returned to the kitchen and continued the quest to make coffee, the one he had abandoned so furiously
. While the machine bubbled, she descended into the cellar. The light illuminated glittering pieces of something shiny… little shards of broken plastic.

  She placed the coffee mugs on the bedside table, and while he remained occupied, she rifled through his trouser pockets hunting for the rest of the phone. The screen was shattered, the casing badly cracked. The shower door creaked. She dropped the damaged mobile back in his pocket.

  He stuck his head round the bathroom door, and smiled, gloriously, as if nothing had happened downstairs. ‘Hi. Mmm, coffee.’

  ‘You're up early.’

  ‘You don't mind, do you? I went into the cellar and punched the shit out of that thing.’ His knuckles were red. He had found out the hard way.

  ‘You should have bound them.’ Why the pain? A stupid question because she used it in the same way.

  ‘I realise that now.’ He examined his hands.

  ‘I'll get you some ice.’ Just before she reached the door, she glanced over her shoulder. He wiped the condensation off the surface of the mirror.

  She froze to the spot. He held the razor to his neck. It shook for a second, then he shifted it up higher, to his upper lip. ‘Bitch,’ he growled. ‘Bitches, the pair of them. Well, screw them.’ He scraped the razor along his jawline and rinsed the blade under the tap. Unperturbed, he smudged the spot of blood along the hardened edge of his chin.

  Julianna retreated, carrying with her a bitter taste, and it wasn’t coffee. Alex had called her a stupid bitch when she had found out about him. He had landed on the pavement and screamed abuse at her. The difference this time was blame: Mark's family had tipped him into a darker place, and it was getting harder to follow him there. She wasn't sure if she wanted to anymore. The thought of giving up on him, which she would revisit throughout that day, brought with it a realisation. Her feelings toward Mark had changed.

  ~ * ~

  Julianna said nothing to Mark about his mobile, and in turn he provided no explanation for his assault on the punch bag. She applied ice to his knuckles and the pair of them danced around the reasons. Short on time, they drank scalding coffee and then ate toast in the car. Her clapped out vehicle was one of the few allowed in the building’s underground exclusive car park. As soon as they walked into the lobby, he pecked her on the cheek and dashed up to his office while she descended into the bowels of the building to speak to Chris.

  The BMW had proved to be a false lead. It was an unmarked police response vehicle cruising the area.

  ‘I'm sure he's not a target, Julianna,’ Chris said. ‘There's no evidence they've traced Mark, or his sister.’

  Even if the BMW was a red herring, she wasn't convinced. Against her better judgement, the temptation to invite Mark to move in with her rose a notch. He wouldn't agree; Mark valued his independence above her. They had chosen to navigate the meandering course of their relationship around their physical needs, not emotional ones.

  Julianna circled Chris’s desk. ‘I just don't like it. It's like the quiet before a storm. And there's an innocent girl caught up in this, a girl I haven't even met.’

  Chris tapped on his keyboard and scribbled something onto a piece of paper. He thrust it at Julianna. ‘Go see her. Why do you need Mark's permission?’

  ‘You had this all the time?’ She stared at the address. It was south of the River Thames. The phone number for the job she no longer had.

  ‘Only recently.’ Chris cleared his throat, awkwardly. ‘It was scribbled on a business card and tossed in amongst the files Mark sent to Sophia. Presumably he had referenced his sister as a potential witness. Sophia was going to contact Ellen directly, but Mr Haynes put a stop to it. Said deal only with Mark. He didn’t mention you.’

  Sophia had kept Jackson in the loop, or more likely Luke had. Jackson Haynes was monitoring the situation more closely than Julianna had realised. Over the previous week, with the help of Chris's extensive resources, she had uncovered the significance of the name Redningsmann and the revelation alarmed her. If Jackson's assumptions were correct, then the man who had laundered money with the help of Mark’s old company Haydocks, and who was likely to be seeking the person responsible for exposing it, was also behind the threats to Hettie; a dangerous criminal who ruled over a successful syndicate of organised gangs. She had teased apart the threads, identifying a few common strands, and they pointed further back in time. This, she believed, was where Jackson wanted her to go. Follow the money and the people, and she might acquire more information than the police and Chris combined. It would do a great deal for her reputation and standing if she proved the existence of these connections.

  Secretly, she enjoyed delving into the mess Mark had left behind. It was probably why protection work lacked appeal, especially being at the beck and call of others and having little say in how she should spend her day. Protocols stymied Julianna's natural inquisitiveness. Being a bodyguard was nothing like the movies.

  Recently she had ferried Hettie to the art gallery and waited for two hours while Mrs Haynes caught up with the latest plans for the new exhibition. Julianna spent the time drinking coffee in the cafe across the street. Unlike Tess, who devoured books, Julianna couldn’t read. She had trained in surveillance, so that was what she spent her time doing: people watching. She wondered what lay behind the little scenes played out over coffees and croissants: angry exchanges, lovers kissing, mothers berating small children, babies demanding milk and men talking over laptops about sales figures. Her own life had never grounded itself in daily routines of family matters. Mark was similar in that respect. He detoured conversation around personal issues and homed in on work.

  She stuffed the piece of paper Chris had given her in her pocket. ‘I'm driving Mrs Haynes tomorrow afternoon?’

  ‘Yes,’ Chris replied.

  ‘I'll try to see her after that.’

  ‘I don't know what you'll achieve. This family is so screwed up. I've told him to stay out of it, but Jackson feels responsible.’

  Chris rarely referred to his boss by his first name; he had let his feelings rise to the surface, which was unwise for a man in his position. Julianna sighed. ‘You're not going to tell me why, are you?’

  ‘No. It's personal. That's the problem with all of this business. It's too damn personal.’

  Nothing more needed to be said. The web of connections revolved around the same people, the same origins. She had calls to make and no time to hassle Chris.

  ~ * ~

  She and Mark spent the Thursday night apart, which was a necessary interlude. So far she had been kind of mercenary with her curiosity. What they both needed was a spell away from the office. After she had visited Ellen, and plugged a few more gaps in her knowledge, she and Mark could have a gentle heart-to-heart. It was time to drop the pretence that she wasn’t that interested in him. She had to keep it sensible and not indulgent; no romantic overtures, which wouldn’t impress him. He possessed aptitude in the bedroom, undeniably pleasing for both of them, however, what had won her over wasn’t his flair for sex or his dogged investigative skills, it was his determination to stay out of his father’s criminal affairs. With luck, by emphasising that honourable quality she could raise the awkward situation with his mother and sister, and find a way to diffuse the anger. Julianna wasn’t expecting resolution, but she couldn’t go on sitting on the side-lines watching the family implode. She was guaranteed to lose Mark if he chose to ignore what she was close to unravelling.

  On Friday, Mark insisted she came with him and jointly present Jackson with their findings. She baulked at the idea of the trip to the top floor.

  ‘You’ve done the leg work. I would have nothing to show if it wasn’t for you,’ he said. ‘Come on, you’re more than a driver. You know you want this recognition.’

  Jackson already knew plenty about Julianna's potential – he had manufactured her secret assignment. But Mark was right. She needed to impress him as much as possible.

  If Jackson was surprised to see Julianna appear alongside
Mark, he kept quiet. He offered them a seat and a drink, which they both declined. Jackson hijacked Diana as she popped in to drop off files. ‘Coffee. Strong and black.’

  She glared at him. ‘Give me two minutes, will you? My feet haven’t touched the ground since you turned up.’

  The repartee was reassuring. Jackson was in a good mood.

  ‘We’ll have to make this snappy; I want to leave for Fasleigh,’ Jackson said. ‘So tell me what you’ve found out.’

  They presented their findings succinctly. The best clue was the discovery of a blog by a previous client of the company who had lambasted his investors for losing his money in a mediocre deal. They tracked down the investment cited, and it should have given a very good return.

  ‘They’re skimming off then.’ Jackson folded his arms across his chest.

  Mark nodded. ‘There are probably other unhappy clients out there, but this one was keen to spill the beans. There’s definitely something fraudulent going on. The tax office has already been alerted to under paying—’

  ‘I know – get shot of the evidence by flogging the company off to me. Well done the pair of you. Your findings will be passed to the authorities and they can decide what to do.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mark. ‘Should I tell Neil to send them packing?’

  ‘Oh, no. That will be my privilege. Perhaps put a cat amongst the pigeons too. I know the board member who initiated the sale. Don’t like him.’

  Julianna didn’t pity the man. A Jackson Haynes-style assassination was exactly what he deserved.

  ‘Have a good weekend, sir,’ Mark said.

  ‘What about you?’ asked Jackson.

  ‘Oh. A quiet one, I think. Very quiet.’

  Jackson turned to Julianna. ‘That's a pity, isn't it?’

  Julianna felt her cheeks flush with heat. ‘I'm busy driving your wife. I’m picking up Sophia after work and taking her to meet Mrs Haynes for the journey to Fasleigh.’