A Banquet of Consequences (50 page)

She could feel an answer developing to these questions as she started to put the files back into the strongbox. For beneath them all lay a memory stick, and Barbara knew enough about computers to understand its import at once. For the memory stick could be used to back up existing files that one was working upon on a computer. But it could also be used to
contain
the files in the first place, hiding them from the sight of someone with access to the computer upon which they might have otherwise been left once they were created.

She needed to get back to Shaftesbury. She needed to see what it was that was so important to Clare that she couldn’t risk leaving it in her house, just like the documents in these locked-away manila filing folders she’d just been reading.

SPITALFIELDS

LONDON

India was touched that Nat wanted her to see the site of his new project, so when he asked her if she had time to meet him there in the late afternoon, she said at once that she did. Her last client was at half past three. She had paperwork to do, but she decided to leave it for the next day as the fading daylight at this time of year meant that she needed to get over to the location of Nat’s terrace of cottages before five.

Getting there presented no difficulty as his directions were as straightforward as the man himself. She went by taxi as far as Shoreditch tube station and from there she walked to Hunton Street where the two terraces of cottages faced each other across a narrow path, with the northern half of them abutting a schoolyard. There, the sounds of children’s excited voices mingling with those of adults calling out to them indicated the end of a day of lessons.

The cottages were, she saw, ancient, tiny, and in sad disrepair: ramshackle from lack of care. They were formed from London brick which had gone unwashed for so many decades that the uniform colour of the place was like sludge, and India could see why a developer might look upon them and decide that buying the lot of them and clearing the site for a tower block would be far more profitable than rehabilitating the little residences, no matter their historical significance. With their dismal and nearly useless front gardens and their paintless front doors, with their roofs looking little better than sieves, it was difficult to imagine that anyone would ever want to live in the places.

Nat was standing in one of the front gardens in the company of a young woman. They both wore hard hats in a bow to what was essentially a construction site, although there didn’t seem to be any construction going on, at least not upon the exterior of the residences. Some of these appeared to be occupied still, for as India set off along the path between the cottages, a
shalwar kameez
–clad woman attempted to manoeuvre a pram through one of the front doors. Nat went to help her.

In doing so, he saw India approaching. He cocked his head with a smile and finished his business first with the pram and then with the young woman, whom he introduced as the architectural intern Victoria Price. She was very pretty, India thought, quite tall and very athletic looking. She also seemed rather more than a little attracted to Nat, if the looks and smiles she was directing towards him were anything to go by. They briefly conversed about their next meeting before Victoria removed her hard hat, released masses of glorious, sun-streaked hair that fell well below her shoulders, and took out her smartphone to make note of her follow-up appointment with Nat.
She would, she told him, have the new drawings ready by then, and in the meantime should she bring on the garden designer? He would prefer to wait on that, Nat told her. He smiled, she beamed, she went on her way. She wore, India thought, completely unsuitable shoes for a work site: very high heels that would no doubt cripple her before she was forty. In the meantime, they made her legs look long and toothsome.

“She’s very pretty,” India told Nat when Victoria was out of earshot.

“She is,” he agreed. “I only wish she was the total package.”

India shot him a questioning look.

He said, “The creativity isn’t quite as good as the body. But she’s very nice all the same and she’s eager to do well, so I can’t complain as much as I’d like to.”

“Which, I expect, isn’t all that much.” She said it in a teasing fashion, but he didn’t react as she thought he might, with a dismissive chuckle.

Instead he said, “Let me show you round,” which he did much as he might have shown a newspaper reporter or a casual acquaintance. This was disquieting, but India reckoned he might merely be in work mode still. She herself would have probably shown him round the Wren Clinic in much the same manner.

Inside one of the abandoned cottages, however, Nat made it clear why he had actually asked her to come to the site. He escorted her round the gutted place and explained how it would look when its interior was completed, but when he was finished with what was a tour of five minutes’ length only, instead of returning to the exterior, he paused at the front door and said to her, “You’ve probably worked out that I’ve more than one reason for asking you to trek over here.”

She played it as an innocent, saying, “The only thing I’d worked out about why you’ve asked me here is that you want to share what you’re doing.”

“I do,” he said. “But there’s a bit more.”

“Victoria Price?”

He actually looked confused, which was gratifying. He took a moment and then said, “Oh. You mean as a love interest? God, no. She’s not my type.”

“I’d think she was any man’s type.”

“Not mine.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

He didn’t smile. She felt a corresponding chill come over her. It seemed to settle between them. He still didn’t open the door of the cottage but rather leaned against it—hips and shoulders with hands in his trouser pockets—and he said, “The thing is, India . . . I’m not sure how to say this so I’m just going to say it.”

She felt more chill and said, “Is something wrong?”

“Well, yes and no. But the thing is . . . I’d prefer not to have my heart broken. I’ve had a long think about everything, and I’ve decided it’s best if we cool things off between us for now.”

India frowned. The rug felt pulled out from beneath her of a sudden, and it didn’t take a great deal of thought for her to understand who was jerking the fringe. She said, “It’s Caroline. The fact that she was—that she is—staying with me.”

“That’s part of it, of course.”

“Nat, it’s not as if I want her there. It’s not as if I invited her. I’m only having her stay because Charlie—”

“That’s just it,” he pointed out. “Charlie. I
know
you’re doing it for Charlie’s sake and it’s you and Charlie and everything involved with you and Charlie that’s forced me to come to terms with how things really are. Look, darling, it’s fairly clear that you’re not ready for what I’m offering you, and I don’t want to rush you into anything.”

“I don’t think you’re rushing me. Is this about Christmas? Asking me to come to Shropshire with you? The fact that I haven’t yet said yes?”

“It’s more than that.” He glanced away, to the window of the cottage which was covered with some sort of filmy material to protect it from what was going on inside the building. He gave a mighty sigh. “I’m in love with you, India, but the way isn’t clear. And if we keep on as we’ve been going, as things stand now it’s a good bet that I’m going to end up fairly devastated. Which, to be honest, I’d like to avoid.”

“What things?”

“Hmm?”

“You said if we keep going, as things stand now. What things?”

“You know what things.”

“Charlie. And his mum.” She crossed the room to him. It was so small she was able to do it in two steps. Directly in front of him, she put her hands on his shoulders and gazed into his face. She said, “This is a favour I’m doing for Charlie. It’s something I’d do for any friend. Charlie’s flat is small and he meets his clients there and—”

“You’ve told me. But I can’t see that it makes any difference at the end of the day.”

“—
and
please take note that without even thinking, darling Nat, I said ‘Charlie’s flat’ and not ‘our flat’ because there is no ‘our’ between me and Charlie. I’m not going to return to him. But after all that’s happened in the last few years with his brother dying and him falling apart and . . . Heavens, Nat, you’ve
met
his mother. She’d love it if Charlie was never able to stand on his own two feet again. That would give her such power, and I see that in ways I couldn’t see when he and I were together. I see how she
always
wanted him to fail as a brother, which he did. And she always wanted him to fail as a husband, which he also did. And now she’d love it if he failed in his career as well. He’d be forced, then, to return to Dorset just like his brother. And there she’d get her claws into him once and for all.”

“He’s an adult. It can’t be that bad.”

“It can and it is. If you knew what she reduced me to when he and I were married . . .”

“You
are
married.”

“Just for now.”

“Right. So I suppose what I’m trying to say is that when things change for you, India—”

“No! You’re not hearing me and I insist that you hear me. If taking Caroline in for a few days helps Charlie stay the course, I can’t say no to that. But it doesn’t mean . . . I don’t want you ever to think it means . . .” She felt the heat of tears at the back of her eyes, but she was determined not to cry. How humiliating, she thought. Like being a schoolgirl whose boyfriend is attempting to rid himself of her. What did he really want her to say? she asked herself. What sort of promise did he need her to make him? She finally settled on, “I can’t bear your walking out of my life, not when it seems I’ve only just found you.”

He closed his eyes briefly. He opened them. He lifted his hand, and his fingers passed so gently over her hair that she could barely feel his touch. He said, “I want you to be that fixed point I’m heading towards.”

“I
am
,” she said. “I’m as much yours as anything can make me in the present moment and nothing will change that. I’m whole with you, I’m alive with you, I’m the woman I want to be with you and only with you.”

He pulled her to him. He kissed her and she matched his passion with her own. “Yes,” he murmured. “It’s the same for me.”

Had they been in some other location, she would have undressed him, so badly did she want to prove to him that she was his. But here in this filthy place it seemed that lovemaking of the kind she had in mind would be a form of sacrilege that she couldn’t admit into what she shared with Nat. But then his hands moved across her body, relieving her of buttons and enclosures and lifting her skirt even as she reached blindly for him and the zipper to his trousers for suddenly the
where
of it didn’t matter at all.

Unexpected footsteps outside hurried along the path between the two sets of cottages. And then, “India? Are you here?”

She and Nat were simultaneously motionless.

“India?”

God in heaven, she thought. Charlie. But how . . . ? And in an instant she not only knew but actually saw it all play out in her mind’s eye: Herself in the shower and Caroline using those moments to tiptoe into the second bedroom where India had been sleeping on the sofa that defined the space as a sitting room and office; Caroline quickly going through India’s mobile phone to check for messages and make note of anything and everything she could use to do damage; Caroline reading the text from Nat and learning from it and from India’s answer where she would be and at what time; Caroline reporting it all to Charlie but in such a way that he felt he had to dash over from Leyden Street in order to . . . what? Who knew? India only knew that he was there, just outside, striding down the pavement with worry in his voice.

Nat said, “What the
hell
 . . . ?” and released her. Quickly he sorted
out his clothing. She wanted to say, “No, don’t. We must move forward,” as if lovemaking in a derelict cottage under renovation would mean some sort of commitment to him that Charlie’s presence couldn’t obviate.

“India? Are you here?”

She held her breath. Surely he wouldn’t rattle the door handles or try to enter any of the cottages. She hadn’t come in her car, so all they needed to do was to wait in silence until he departed.

But Nat wasn’t having any of that. He said, “Your clothes . . . ?” in a way that indicated to her she was meant to straighten them as he had done to his, and ever the obedient child when ordered to be one, she did as he asked. She buttoned and tucked, and soon enough Nat opened the cottage door and went outside and what could she do but follow him?

Charlie was at the far end of the row of cottages and he’d just turned to retrace his steps when India, on Nat’s tail, stepped into the unkempt front garden of the dwelling Nat had showed her. Charlie stopped at once. His face altered, and in its alteration India knew at once that he had been his mother’s dupe. She wanted to call out “What did she actually tell you, Charlie?” but she reckoned she could work it out well enough: Darling, India’s gone into a worrying area this afternoon and I’m terribly concerned about the nature of this place. Don’t even ask me why she’s doing it, but apparently she’s paying a call on someone in a neighbourhood worse than where Will and that wretched Lily lived. I think it’s so
very
unwise of her and I’ve tried to tell her that alone at the time of day she intends to visit . . . Anything could happen to her. You see that, don’t you?

He had seen that and here he’d come, ending up being confronted not only by India but also by her lover. Or her erstwhile lover. Or whatever he was because Nat was saying to her quietly, “We must speak later,” and before she could tell him to stay or insist that he remain at her side or use some sort of wily female act at which she was so miserable anyway . . . he was gone. He said nothing to Charlie and did not acknowledge him with so much as a nod. He strode in the direction of Hunton Street where earlier she had seen his car.

“What did she tell you?” India asked Charlie. “And did she mention that she went through my mobile? Because that’s the only way she would have known where I was. And let me ask you this: Do you think that’s even remotely acceptable?”