Never Tell (19 page)

‘Please, Mr Callendar.’ I leaned on the sink and tried to calm myself. I was so angry now I was sweating; I’d become inarticulate in my rage.

‘Danny.’

‘Please,
Mr
Callendar, leave my property. Now.’

‘I came to warn you, Rose. For your own sake.’

‘Yeah, I got that bit, thanks.’ I turned to face him. He’d laid his gun, a Glock, on the worktop. It lay there, black and silent. Vehemently I pushed down the fear rearing up inside; I’d be damned if I’d let him see it.

‘This is what Mr Kattan pays you to do, is it, the “hired help”?’ I stared at the gun and I felt hatred for Callendar’s sheer arrogance. ‘You must be very proud of yourself.’

‘Maybe.’ He shrugged again. ‘I know what you’re up to, by the way.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘I mean – I know who you are.’

We stared at each other for a moment. ‘And who am I?’

‘You’re a journalist, an award-winning one,’ he said indolently. ‘But there’s no story here, Rose Langton. Leave it alone.’

‘I was only going to interview him for the local paper,’ I protested.

‘But you work for the nationals, don’t you? The
Guardian, The Times
. He doesn’t know,’ he leaned against the worktop, lazily crossed his Converse trainers at the ankle, ‘not yet. But I do. Like I know you saw Maya today.’

‘I won’t let you intimidate me, you know,’ I said, but I was lying. I was already intimidated, gun or no gun. There was a quiet menace about him, the way he held himself, apparently so relaxed – all scruffy jeans and parka and messy hair, flecks of blond in his dark stubble – but it was all a front. I could sense the tension in him underneath the surface, like something pulled tight. Something about to snap.

‘You don’t understand what you’re messing with,’ he said quietly and before I could move he’d grabbed my arm, yanking me towards him. ‘You really don’t. Kattan’s playing with you. And he will turn nasty. You need to keep away.’

‘Get off me,’ I hissed. He was hurting me. My heart was beating so fast now I thought it might actually become audible, and I struggled hard, trying to free myself but he was holding my arm so tight and he wasn’t about to let go. I looked up at him, at his dark-fringed blue eyes and I was so near I could see the ring of black around the blue. Everything was flying around inside my head, banging off the sides of my poor brain.

‘Is that why you were following me?’ I whispered. ‘I saw you, you know.’

‘I wasn’t following you,’ he said, quieter still. And he looked at me and I looked back at him and something happened; I felt this surge from deep inside, a surge of something that I hardly recognised, that I had never really felt before, not in my whole life, and I was shaking now with fear but also something else. I tried to push it back down inside but he was too near and I stared at his mouth and then apparently he was speaking. I couldn’t think, couldn’t concentrate.

‘For God’s sake, Rose,’ he muttered, ‘you really don’t get it, do you?’

‘Don’t get what?’ I said, and suddenly I felt like crying, and thought, I’m probably just going crazy. That’s all this is: I’m finally going mad. And then I said, I whispered, ‘I do actually. I do get it. You’re warning me off.’

He spoke, but I couldn’t understand.

‘What?’

‘Don’t,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t cry.’

‘I’m not,’ I said, but my face was wet.

He laid one gentle hand down my left eye and cheek. ‘You just – you need to take care,’ I thought he whispered then, and he looked different suddenly and I turned my head so I could hear him better, but his hand was still on my skin.

‘Take care doing what?’ I stared at him and his hand slipped down my face and perhaps I was actually drowning in the sea of that blue. And so I shut my eyes.

And when I opened my eyes again and looked into the sky, the sea in him, he looked back and I disappeared into the blue and then he bent his head and kissed me.

I couldn’t suppress it, this feeling that had been growing in me since I first met him. It had grown bigger than me now and I didn’t want to have to fight it any more. I didn’t know until the second that he kissed me that he felt it too, the second he leaned towards me and I found myself kissing him back, and it was so natural, the most natural thing in the world like it was all I wanted to do.

We fell together. I didn’t think of anyone else apart from him and me. I didn’t feel guilt, I didn’t feel anything apart from this instant, the here and now.

The here and now, this moment, this dark moment, the slamming, the harsh coming together, tearing at each other’s clothes, his T-shirt off, the great dragon roaring on his shoulder, my shirt unbuttoned, my mouth on his, skin beneath my fingers, his hand tangled in my hair …

Oh God. We didn’t make it to the bedroom.

And afterwards …

Afterwards he was so quiet I thought he must regret it. I could only hear our breathing and the tick of the kitchen clock, the hum of the fridge. And my heart racing.

I took his hand and we went upstairs and we fell asleep together. And then when we woke in the early hours we moved quieter this time and afterwards I found I was crying silent tears.

Because I knew this was wrong, but how could it be when it was absolutely right too?

Chapter Eleven

In the morning I woke early and alone, before the splinter of light around the curtains appeared. I felt tired and bruised, and I couldn’t immediately think what was wrong.

It was too quiet: there were no children in the house. The rare peace unnerved me. Eventually I gave up trying to doze and went downstairs to make tea. I sat at the kitchen counter to drink it, and the Glock was gone – and so was Danny. I looked out at the light that sliced the grey morning sky and knew I should try James again. But his voicemail was still on, so I rang the Rex Hotel in Saigon.

‘One moment please,’ the singsong voice said. As I waited, I caught my reflection in the window. My eyes were swollen and there were bruises on my arm beneath my T-shirt sleeve. Fingermarks. I turned away as she came back on the line. The memory of Danny’s skin on mine – but perhaps it had not been real.

‘I am sorry. Mr Miller has not checked in yet.’

‘Are you sure?’ I was confused. He must have arrived last night. ‘James Miller, from England?’

‘I will check again. Excuse me one moment.’ An electronic Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons
chirped down the line; I wasn’t sure which one exactly.
Autumn
, perhaps. ‘No, madam. He has a reservation for one week but he is not arrived yet. I am sorry for your trouble, madam. Would you like to leave a message for James Miller when he does arrive?’

‘Yes. No.’ My mind was racing. ‘Could you just say Rose – Mrs Miller – rang. His wife. And you’re quite sure he didn’t change his reservation?’

‘Quite sure, madam. He was expected yesterday.’ A crackle of static. ‘Perhaps his flight was delayed.’

‘Perhaps.’ Perhaps the plane had crashed. No, that was ridiculous. I’d have heard something by now.

‘We will hold his room for forty-eight hours – or until we hear from him. I will pass on your message when he arrives.’

The newspaper dropped through the letterbox as I hung up. James must have decided to stay somewhere else, though he was a creature of habit; we’d stayed at the Rex on our honeymoon and so naturally, he’d chosen it again. I tried Liam but it was too early: he’d still be in bed. Then I rang Xav and left him a message.

‘I thought you’d like to know, I’ve been warned off Kattan again by him and his bloody henchman, and I’m sure you’re barking up the right tree,’ I said, pouring more tea, smoothing out the newspaper. Riots in London. Knife-crime statistics. Comment on Senator Obama’s wife, Michelle’s, wardrobe. Tightening of terrorism laws.

‘Yesterday I met his daughter, the enigmatic Maya – at her behest, actually,’ I went on. ‘She’s certainly got an axe to grind with Daddy. Call me when you get in.’

I checked the newspaper from front to back and then rang Xav back.

‘And by the way, why are none of you running the death at the manor story?’

When I went upstairs to get dressed, I took my mobile with me. I was waiting for James to ring, I told myself, that was all.

* * *

My mother rings. They are enjoying having the kids so much can they stay another night. Fears that the visit would set my father’s health back have apparently dissipated.

‘It’s giving him a new lease of life.’ My mother sounds young and carefree for once.

‘Please, Mummy, please, please,’ Alicia pleads, snatching the phone. In the background I can hear Grandpa being a bear.

I laugh. ‘Don’t you miss me?’

‘Gran let us stay up to watch
Doctor Who
and she’s going to buy me a pink dress tomorrow. And she let us have a whole packet of Rolos
and
a KitKat –’ a dramatic pause – ‘each.’

Freddie comes on the line. ‘Batman wants to stay at Gran’s,’ he says solemnly. ‘And so does Under-woman.’

Only Effie seems to miss me, with a little sniffle at the end of our conversation.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Eff, OK, sweetie-pie?’ I reassure her. I hang up and blow my nose. My emotions are all on the surface right now, my skin is off. I feel raw and available, like a peeled orange.

For once I have the time to choose what I wear carefully. I do my make-up very slowly. I play loud music in the bedroom and sing and feel like I used to when I was a teenager before a big night out. Before Oxford. The cat blinks at me from the bed as I shimmy around, and then yawns widely and goes back to sleep. I decide to walk to the village shop. On the way I pass a pheasant running out of the hedge; I smile at its silly run, like an old lady bent double. I sing Bob Dylan. I have stepped over the boundary into something new.

Outside the village shop, I see the Range Rover drive towards me. I stop singing. My stomach feels like lots of small things are rolling around inside uncomfortably.

Hadi Kattan opens his car window and looks down on me. His mouth is set and he is wearing expensive Ray-Bans that he doesn’t remove when he speaks.

‘Mrs Miller,’ he says, ‘I asked you not to go near my daughter, didn’t I? But once again I find you have ignored my request.’

He stares at me blankly through the sunglasses. I feel small but I won’t let him see that.

I consider the best tack. ‘Really, Mr Kattan, we just had a perfectly harmless lunch. She wanted to talk. You said yourself she’s lonely.’

‘Why would she want to talk to a journalist? She is devastated, and you are trying to find out about her politics.’

My stomach plunges. Danny is sitting there in the driver’s seat; he glances over. For an infinitesimal moment our eyes meet. I am pierced by those eyes – and then he looks away. I feel stung.

Instinctively I glance in the back of the car and there is Maya. It is hard to see her face clearly and she is still wearing sunglasses, but there is something so bowed and sad about her posture.

Then Kattan says, ‘Please, Mrs Miller, this is the end of our dealings now.’

I am torn. Do I try to help her, or do I go quietly? I glance at Danny but he is fiddling with something on the dashboard. I start to turn away, then I turn back.

‘Is Maya all right?’ I ask boldly. ‘Are you?’ I say louder, so that she can hear too. She doesn’t respond but leans her head back against the seat.

‘Ah, your new friend, Maya.’ Kattan takes his glasses off and looks down at me. ‘Yes, Maya is fine.’ There’s a small mark across the bridge of his nose where the glasses have rested. His dark eyes are grave. ‘Please, give your husband my regards.’

My husband, who has apparently disappeared.

And I smile at Hadi Kattan as best I can and then I walk away, and I know they are all watching me.

The big car passes by when I get to the end of my own drive, and when I stomp down to my house, I find that my hands are sweating where I’ve clamped them into fists.

* * *

I didn’t want to return to my empty house. I despised myself suddenly for the Danny thing. How could I have been so stupid? I was already struggling with our worlds, our worlds that clashed, that did not unite. With my attraction to a man who did something I disagreed with so fundamentally – and worse, with my own morality. I had a husband, a family. And yet the part of me yearning so desperately recognised my deep and apparently insatiable predilection for danger – something my friend Dalziel had awoken in me, aged eighteen, and still something I couldn’t seem ever to quash for very long.

I sat on the stone bench for a while in the back garden and deliberated. I decided I’d go to my parents and stay the night before bringing the children back with me tomorrow. It was funny, all this time I thought I’d enjoy the rest, the peace – but now I just missed them desperately: the twins’ plump little bodies, Alicia’s tuneless singing, the constant noise, banging doors, strident cartoons, even the fighting.

I’d pack a bag and drive straight to Derby; I’d be there by tea-time. I couldn’t sit around here waiting, and the Kattan thing was going nowhere.

Infinitely cheered, I unlocked the front door. Sunlight danced across the hall, the heady smell of the hyacinths in the kitchen pervading the air and—

There was an almighty crash from somewhere in the depths of the house.

‘Hello?’

The cat screeched across the hall and I laughed tremulously. ‘Bloody hell, Tigger. Take it easy, would you?’

He crouched with reproachful eyes beneath the kitchen table. I put the kettle on and thought about trying James again.

There was another crash from the direction of the studio.

I took a deep breath, picked up the nearest weapon – a rolling pin apparently – and made my way to the studio door. The light was on.

‘Whoever you are, I’m calling the police,’ I said loudly, and pushed open the door.

Liam was rifling through a box-file that he’d dragged from the shelf, his back to me. He jumped a foot in the air.

‘Rosie.’ He turned, flushing guiltily. ‘Christ, you scared me.’

‘I could say the same.’ I sank down on a stool shaped like a pill bottle. ‘Flipping heck.’