A Banquet of Consequences (43 page)

She had the goulash bubbling away on the cooker and everything else—save the toffee-pecan pie—on a neatly laid table when the sound of the front door opening heralded Nkata’s return. She’d burned the pie a bit, but she’d knocked the blackened bits into the rubbish, where she’d also placed the tins and the jars from which her sumptuous repast had come. These she’d covered with the plastic carrier bags from the market and for good measure, she’d also crumpled up two old newspapers and smashed them down to hide the bags whose Co-op logos were something of a giveaway.

Nkata paused in the kitchen doorway. He observed her at the cooker, wooden spoon in her hand and steam rising from a copper-bottomed pot. He said, “You doing dinner, Barb?” and he held up a shopping bag himself, adding, “Guess I di’n’t need to bother. I was goin to do us beef, mushroom, and lager pie. Sprouts with bacon, shallots, ’n’ hazelnuts, ’s well.”

“Shallots, eh?” Barbara wondered what the hell they were. “I did us a goulash,” she said. “Can yours wait for tomorrow?”

“Can,” he said, and he began to unload his carrier bag, whose contents proclaimed his intention actually to make the beef, mushroom, and lager pie from scratch. From
scratch
, she thought. She felt her mouth water. Beef, mushrooms, lager, a delicious gravy, flaky crust, sprouts, bacon, nuts, and . . . whatever they were . . . oh yes, shallots. But she got a grip and turned determinedly back to the cooker, where she lifted the lid of her pot and let its aroma waft into the air.

Admittedly, it smelled a bit burnt. She scraped the bottom of the pan energetically to mix the burnt bits more thoroughly into the rest of the goulash. She said, “Have a seat and I’ll bring this out. There’s a starter on the table. Drinks ’s well.”

“Will do,” he said, balling up his carrier bag. “I’ll just toss—”

“No!” Wooden spoon in hand, she leapt towards him so frantically that he started. He looked from her to the rubbish bin. He said her name in what she recognised as a what-am-I-about-to-discover-here tone. And then he strode to the rubbish, lifted its lid, lifted the crumpled newspapers, and shot her a look once he’d clocked the tins. “Barb,” he said in a voice that spoke largely of his concern. Not for
her, of course, but for his body. God knew he’d probably never sullied it with something factory-made before now.

“You’ll survive,” she said. “It’ll be a new experience. It might change your whole world. Live a little. Spread your wings.”

He considered her, then the discarded tins and jars, then her again. He chuckled and said, “Should’ve guessed when I saw you at the cooker. I almost passed out. The shock an’ all that. Least it’s a good thing you’re not smoking over the pot, innit.” He gazed at her earnestly. He sniffed the air. “You
didn’t
smoke while you were heatin it, Barb? Get some ashes in it and stir ’em up?”

“Me? No. What d’you think I am? Bloody hell, Winston, go sit down.” She slid her jar-top ashtray out of sight to the side of a stainless steel canister. When he’d obediently left her for the dining room, she flung the jar top and its contents of five dog ends into the rubbish, where a nice stirring mixed it all in with the rest of the evidence of her sins.

Nkata was at the table, cooperatively tucking into the tuna-and-mayo paste. He spread some on a biscuit and topped it with marmalade. Had his mother been dead, Barbara reckoned, she would have been spinning. As it was, when he smiled and nodded his approval at her, she said, “Your every secret will be safe with me.”

She dished up the goulash. She handed over the beetroot. She sat and dug in. A little overcooked, a little burnt, the beetroot a little soggy, but what the hell. She dolloped tuna-and-mayo paste on top, tried it out with the goulash, and decided it wasn’t half bad. She said, “Got toffee-pecan pie for our pudding,” as she popped open her can of white wine.

“Jus’ don’t tell my mum.”

“Like I said,” she agreed.

It wasn’t until they’d finished their meal that they got down to business. Her part of the telling was brief: Caroline Goldacre was in London but Alastair MacKerron had cooperated and she’d taken his prints. Nkata’s part was lengthier and far more interesting. He’d tracked down both Hermione and Linne—“Seems this bird Wallis’s gone off to Canada to see the first grandkid”—and they’d been happy to give him everything they knew when it came to Clare Abbott and Caroline Goldacre.

“First off,” he said as he forked up some more goulash and inspected it carefully, “seems she’s not quite right in the head when it comes to lookin at herself in the mirror.”

“Which one of them? Caroline?”

“Caroline, yeah. ’Cording to Hermione and Linne, she sees herself as a real fem’nist but she’s been supported by one man or th’ other since she was summat like”—he held his fork suspended while he examined his leather notebook—“eighteen years old. Tha’s when she had her first kid. Been involved in the Women’s League round here since she an’ Alastair got the bakery, and first she tried to take over the thing—”

“The Women’s League?”

“Right, cos she saw herself as the most comp’tent person to run it. Which these two ladies—Hermione and Linne?—reckoned was the funniest thing this side of a comedy show on the telly. Also . . .” He finally deposited the goulash into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully as Barbara watched to see his assessment. He grabbed up his glass and took a hearty gulp of Fanta Lemon before saying politely, “Not half bad, Barb. My mum, she doesn’t ever make goulash. It’s got a . . . an in’eresting flavour, eh?”

“That would be the burnt bit,” Barbara told him. “I probably shouldn’t have scraped the bottom of the pot.”

“Oh. Makes the cleanup easier, that,” he said. “No worries.”

“The tuna paste might make it go down easier.”

“’Spect it would, but I like it how it is.” He went back to his notebook. “Also,” he continued on the topic of Hermione and Linne, “seems that she wasn’t ’xactly happy working for Clare. Seems she felt . . .” He ran his long finger down the notebook page to find something and then said, “Ill used. She thought her wages were too low by half, specially cos she was the one doin the heavy lifting, she said.”

“Meaning?”

“This Hermione? She says Caroline claimed she was doing most of the writing of Clare’s books ’n articles while Clare was takin all the glory.”

Barbara drew her eyebrows together as she thought this one over, comparing the information to the various cheques that had been written by Clare to the woman.

Winston continued. “Said she could take over Clare’s work in a minute and Clare was nothing if
she
wasn’t round to see to it pages got sent in regular to her editor. ’Cording to Hermione, this is. Plus, she says, af’er the service for Clare at St. Peter’s? Tha’s the church in town here. She was going on ‘bout Clare taking advantage of her for the whole time she worked for her.”

“What about the other woman? Linne? How’s she fit in?”

That, Nkata told her, was a more interesting tale. It seemed that Linne and Caroline Goldacre had once been friends. “Real besties” was how Winston put it. But they had a falling out about a building that Linne and her husband owned in a part of Shaftesbury called Swans Yard, “Some sort ’f artsy place with a few galleries and such.” The building that Linne and her husband owned comprised a shop below and a small flat above, and they had let both the flat and the shop to a tattoo artist. As it turned out, the tattoo artist was Lily Foster, and Caroline wanted Linne and her husband to evict her.

“She wouldn’t do,” Winston finished. “Said the girl had a lease she’d signed, she’d put a fat deposit on the place, she wasn’t trouble, and Linne had no cause to evict her. Caroline wants her to
make
a cause to evict her, more ’r less. Linne says no.” He flipped his notebook closed, and Barbara was gratified to see him spear up some more goulash, although he did take it on with a load of beets as well. “So tha’ was it ’tween them as friends. It all happened ’bout a year after the son killed himself. Which, ’cording to Hermione, is something Caroline keeps picking at like it’s a scab she doesn’t want to heal over. Turns out neither of these ladies had a heart for Caroline, but they liked Clare. Weren’t thick with her, nothing like that. But they admired her. Said they couldn’t ever sort out why she kept Caroline working for her ’less Caroline was blackmailing Clare or summat. They had a good laugh on that one, Barb. Said they couldn’t ’magine what secrets Clare might’ve had that Caroline knew enough ‘bout to blackmail her over. In’eresting, that, I thought, specially considering Clare’s chequebook, the blokes she met up with for sex, an’ the blackmail someone tried with them.”

“I can’t see Clare wanting her meetings with those blokes to get out,” Barbara agreed. “But when I told the Inspector, he banged on
about the amount of money involved in the cheques we looked at. Hardly looked like blackmail money, is what he said, and wouldn’t Caroline have wanted cash anyway? I’m more or less on board with him, Winnie, when it comes to that. She wanted eight hundred quid from the blokes. Why go for so little from Clare? We need to look into all of her accounts—she’s got to have some in London—but . . . I don’t know if money is the way to go.”

“Maybe her job was the blackmail, Barb. Cos when Clare talked to those ladies Hermione and Linne . . . ? They reckoned, at the end of the conversation, it might’ve been cos she was trying to come up with some way to sack her. ‘She needed sacking’ was how one ’f them put it. But no way was Caroline ever going down without a fight.”

“‘We’re finished.’ That’s what one of them said in Cambridge, eh?” Barbara reminded him.

“‘Not with what I know ’bout you. We’ll never be finished,’” Nkata countered with a nod.

CAMBERWELL

SOUTH LONDON

India was doing the washing-up when the doorbell rang. Behind her at the kitchen table, Caroline drew in a sharp breath and said, “You
mustn’t
answer that, India. It could be anyone, especially round here and after dark,” and it was the evaluation of her neighbourhood more than anything else that made India determined to slide the bolt back and throw the door open.

They’d just finished dinner and Caroline had just helped herself to another bottle of wine. Sangiovese, this one was. India had been saving it for a dinner with Nat that she’d planned for next week, but true to character, Caroline had simply helped herself.

When the doorbell went a second time, India dried her hands, called out, “Coming,” and strode towards the entry. Caroline, irritatingly, followed her, saying, “Look through the curtains at least. Please.”

India sighed and went to the bay window in the house’s sitting room. She flicked back the curtains an inch to see Nat standing there,
the recognisable shape of him illuminated by the street lamp just beyond him on the pavement. Behind her, Caroline said, “Ah. That’s the new man, isn’t it?”

India said nothing. She tried to decide what to do—to ignore the bell or to open the door—and what might be the consequence of either action. She’d told Nat she’d be at home, so anything else would encourage him to think her a liar. Thus, it didn’t seem she had much choice. She headed for the door as Caroline added, “I suppose I can celebrate that you’ve not yet given him your house key.”

Ignoring this jibe, India unbolted and opened the door, switching on the porch light first. It wasn’t like Nat simply to turn up like this, and while the last thing she wanted was for him to meet Charlie’s mother, she knew that asking Caroline to give them some privacy was not going to move her from what was clearly her intention: to be introduced to India’s lover. Her mother-in-law made this apparent by standing directly behind India, although out of sight, which was a very small blessing as things turned out.

Nat said, “Ah. There you are. I went to the church first,” which reminded India that this was one of her rehearsal nights with the choir, and she’d forgotten. “When I saw you weren’t there, I was . . . well, not so much concerned as selfishly intent to give this to you. I was thinking it might convince you.”

This
was a photograph, which he handed over. She saw that it was of a toddler on the back of an alpaca “reindeer” with cloth antlers attached to its head. Nat as a young adolescent wore elfin clothing and an expression of forbearance as he held the reins of the animal. A light dusting of snow was on the ground.

He said, “It was all true, as you can see. I think I was about . . . Let me see. I must have been seventeen when I realised that the alpacas
weren’t
actually reindeer and that my dad was certainly not Father Christmas. I ought to have drawn the conclusion earlier . . . say at sixteen? . . . but I was rather thick.”

She laughed. “You’re very persistent, Nathaniel Thompson.”

“I’ve a good reason to be.”

At that, Caroline stepped out from behind the door and said, “I’d so like to be introduced to your friend, India.”

Nat looked surprised. “Oh. Sorry. I’d no idea you had company.”

Caroline responded with, “You must come in. We’re doing the washing-up. There’s wine left, and I expect you’d like a glass. You’re Nat, aren’t you?”

India felt frozen to the spot. The last thing she wanted was Caroline’s presence polluting her nascent relationship with Nat. She merely wasn’t sure how to avoid it.

Nat said, “I . . .” and clearly tried to read the situation, which was admittedly a confusing one for him.

Caroline reached past India’s blocking of the doorway and plucked the photograph out of her hands. She carried it towards the kitchen where the light was better. She called back over her shoulder, “Don’t be a stranger out there, Nat. Do come in. Is this you, then? Ah. Yes. I can see that it is. You were quite a handsome adolescent, weren’t you? And you’ve become quite a handsome man. I can see the attraction, India.”

There was no choice at that point. India stepped back from the doorway, holding it open for Nat. She said, “Sorry,” in a low voice. “There was so little I could do.”

Caroline was busying herself with the wine: fetching another glass for Nat, pouring him a nice dose, doing the same for herself and for India, ever the bustling hostess. When they joined her, she said brightly, “I’m Caroline Goldacre, Charlie’s mum. Have you met Charlie?”