The Moment She Left (31 page)

‘So was that him you were on the phone to during the night?’ Martin had demanded sourly when she’d taken him a coffee before leaving the flat just now.

She hadn’t bothered to answer, nor, thankfully, had he pursued it.

‘Where are you going?’ he’d growled as she’d headed for the door.

‘To see Charles Stamfield.’

His eyes darkened suspiciously. ‘Why?’

‘There are some things we need to discuss. I’d appreciate it if you weren’t here when I get back.’

‘Would you? Well, maybe it would suit me better to stay.’

Biting down on her frustration, she’d simply picked up her bag and left.

Now, as she approached the Coach House and spotted Pamela waving out to her, she pulled over to say hello.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen Rowzee on your travels?’ Pamela asked worriedly as Andee lowered the driver’s window.

‘There was no sign of her on the road coming up here,’ Andee replied. ‘Why? What’s happened?’

‘Nothing, I hope. It’s just that I thought she’d have been back in time for breakfast.’

‘Where did she go?’

‘To walk Teddy. I heard her leaving about seven o’clock, and silly thing hasn’t taken her phone. I’m afraid she might have got lost, or had a fall and knocked herself out. Bill’s gone up to the Hall to get his quad bike so he can search the estate. He said I should wait here in case she comes back, and I suppose he’s right, but I’m next to useless, pacing up and down frightening myself to death. Do you think I should call Graeme? Yes, I should. I’ll do it now,’ and before Andee could respond she’d disappeared inside.

Carrying on to the Hall, Andee kept a lookout for Rowzee as she went, but the grounds were as still and tranquil as a painting in the mid-morning sunlight.
Three hours was a long dog walk, she was reflecting worriedly to herself, especially when Rowzee had clearly been expected home after not much more than an hour.

Spotting Charles and Bill in front of the Hall, she circled the fountain and was just getting out of her car when both men suddenly turned away from her. Realising they were responding to Rowzee stumbling across the grass and calling out to them, Andee moved quickly, getting to her just as Bill did and holding her steady as she tried to catch her breath, with Teddy running around them in circles.

‘It’s OK,’ Andee soothed, as Rowzee struggled to speak. ‘Just take a breath.’

Rowzee was bruised and scratched, her hair was full of brambles and leaves, but finally she found her voice. Looking at Bill, she gasped, ‘You have to come. There’s a car . . . in the swamp.’

‘What swamp?’ Bill demanded urgently.

‘Over that way.’ She was pointing across the flowing expanse of fields. ‘At the back of Valley Woods. I came as fast as I could. I got lost, looking for Teddy, but . . . Oh Bill, I think – I’m sure, someone’s
in
the car.’

As Bill took off towards the fields on his quad bike with Rowzee in a helmet riding pillion and Teddy in hot pursuit, Andee’s eyes returned to Charles. She’d noticed the instant Rowzee had told them about the car how pale he’d gone, and there was still no colour to him now.

Surely to God this wasn’t what she was thinking, but she had a horrible feeling it was.

‘You’d better come in,’ he said quietly.

Following him up the front steps and across the vestibule into the library, she wondered if Gina was around, but there was no sign of her.

‘There’s coffee,’ Charles said, stopping at a table in front of his desk. ‘I made it myself ready for your visit, so I don’t know how warm it still is.’

‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ she responded. A part of her was desperately wishing this wasn’t happening; she didn’t want him, or Gina, to be involved in whatever had happened to Jessica, they were friends whom she cared for deeply, but simply being here now, like this, was enough to convince her that her suspicions were correct.

What the hell had they done?

He didn’t speak again until they were seated in wingback chairs either side of the Byzantine fireplace with an enormous portrait of his grandfather towering over them, and hazy bands of sunlight streaming through the south-facing windows. ‘The police will be here soon,’ he said bleakly. ‘Bill will call them once he reaches the lake, but I’d rather speak to you.’

Her mouth was turning dry as she watched him. Never, in a million years, when Blake had asked her to take this case on, would she have imagined that it would end up here. In spite of her instincts, she was still finding it hard to accept. ‘You realise you’ll probably have to repeat it all to them?’ she said softly.

He nodded in a way that seemed both vague and yet almost impatient, as though he were trying to maintain, or even establish, a train of thought. She watched
him closely, and as his eyes seemed to cloud she could sense him moving away from where he was to a place, a time, a circumstance that only he could see. ‘I should begin by telling you how Jessica and I met,’ he said quietly, and the confirmation of her fears turned her heart inside out.

He took a breath that shook on a sob, and for a moment she could see how hard he was struggling. Whatever he was about to tell her was clearly causing him such immense anguish that putting it into words was almost too much to bear. In the end he spoke coherently, his voice low as he said, ‘It was at one of the parties there was so much talk about. I can tell you which one if you like, but as what happened after had nothing to do with the hosts, or anyone else who was there, I’d rather keep them out of it.’

Knowing that would have to be a decision for later, Andee simply waited for him to continue.

‘My name wasn’t on the guest list,’ he told her, ‘because I went along at the last minute with a friend whose partner couldn’t make it. The friend left early but I stayed. Jessica was singing that night and I know this is going to sound clichéd, delusional, maybe even sick given the difference in our ages, but I felt a connection with her even before we spoke. I found her mesmerising; I couldn’t take my eyes off her, and the whole time she sang she seemed to be singing to me. I didn’t ask anyone to introduce us when she’d finished; I simply went up and introduced myself. She said she knew who I was because her parents lived in Kesterly-on-Sea. We didn’t talk for long, she said
she had to leave, so I asked if I could see her again and to my amazement she said yes.’

It was a measure of his modesty, Andee was thinking, that he’d find a young girl’s attraction to him surprising, for he was, and always had been, an exceptionally attractive man. He was also very rich.

‘She knew I was married, of course,’ he continued, ‘so she understood the need for discretion. Even so, I was aware I was taking a risk; girls of her age can rarely keep things to themselves, but over time it turned out that she could. I’d go as far as to say that the secrecy of our relationship was something that excited her.’ He swallowed drily. ‘It was after our first couple of meetings, at a hotel in Knightsbridge where I took two rooms to disguise the fact we were together, that I decided to rent a place. We needed somewhere to go where we could spend as much time as we wanted to, and where we wouldn’t be seen by other hotel guests, or staff. So I contacted a rental agent I knew about who finds places for people who don’t want to be on the record, mostly foreigners who want to keep a low profile in London for whatever reason, and everything went through without me having to meet anyone, or formally state a source of funding. Jessica fell in love with the house the minute she saw it, and she never seemed to mind that we couldn’t invite anyone round, or go out together in public. She said she was happy for us to spend whatever time we could just the two of us, not sharing it with anyone else, or even thinking about them.’ He paused for a moment, lowering his eyes as he dealt with another build-up of emotion.

‘None of it would have happened if things had been right between me and Gina,’ he continued hoarsely, ‘but that sounds as though I’m trying to blame her, and nothing about this was anyone’s fault but mine. Gina couldn’t help what happened to her after the cancer, I knew she felt terrible about it, and she tried so many ways to put it right, but nothing ever seemed to work. It got to a point where I was afraid to touch her in case she recoiled, and she felt so bad about always rejecting me that our marriage was in danger of collapse. It was an attempt to keep us together that made Gina offer to turn a blind eye if I wanted to have an affair, on the proviso I didn’t allow it to get serious. At the time I had no intention of carrying it through, I loved Gina, I still do, but then I met Jessica and . . . And I realised how much I’d been missing that part of my life. Please don’t think I’m only talking about sex, although I won’t deny it was a big part of our relationship, I’m talking about the fun and laughter that goes with that sort of togetherness, the joy of discovering what gives someone else pleasure, feeling so close to them that it’s as though you’re inside their skin. Young as she was, that’s how it was for me with Jessica, and I believe it was the same for her.’

Trying to remain detached as she watched him struggle for control, Andee allowed several moments to pass before saying, ‘Would I be right in thinking that the house was in Holland Park?’

He didn’t appear surprised that she knew, seemed in a way hardly to be listening. ‘Yes, you would,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t large, but it was ours and we spent
as much time there as we could. I told her she could live there if she wanted to, but she insisted it would be best if she carried on with her plans to share with her friends when she returned to uni after the summer. That way no one would wonder where she was getting the money from to rent somewhere in one of the most expensive parts of town – and besides she didn’t want to feel obliged to invite her friends to her home when it was our special place.’ He swallowed hard, pressed his fingers to his temples and forced himself to continue. ‘I wanted to help her financially, with tuition fees and the rest of it so she wouldn’t start out life in debt, and she was willing to let that happen provided I didn’t think it was the reason she was with me. Whether or not it was I suppose we’ll never know for certain, but I truly believe that her feelings for me were as strong as mine were for her.’ As he lost his words Andee could see how desperately he wanted that to be true, and because she knew him so well she didn’t doubt that it was. He was, and always had been, very easy to love. ‘I used to fantasise about leaving Gina for her,’ he confessed, ‘about being able to live our lives openly, I even used to imagine marrying her and starting a new family . . . I never told her that, I didn’t want to frighten her. She was so young, with her whole life ahead of her . . .’ He broke off as harsh, despairing tears overwhelmed him.

Andee waited quietly, sensing he didn’t want her to touch him, but feeling as sorry for him as she always did for someone who had no clear understanding of how things had turned out the way they had. ‘So what happened to her?’ she asked gently.

His eyes closed as he shrank from the need to continue, until finally he managed to accept it.

‘She was going home to Kesterly that day for the summer,’ he said shakily. ‘We’d already arranged a secret rendezvous place on the moor so we could keep seeing one another. I could see how intrigued and excited she was by the idea of clandestine meetings in a remote place in the outdoors. She wanted . . . She wanted to make love in the open air . . .’ He broke off as his voice was swallowed by another surge of grief.

‘When I rang her,’ he finally continued, ‘she was already on her way to Paddington. I told her I had a surprise for her that I’d like her to have before she left. So we arranged to meet at the house. There was a private garage at the back where you could enter, close the door behind you and go into the house without going outside again. It was the way we always went, so it was where I waited for her. And when she saw her surprise . . .’

Jessica’s hands flew to her face. ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,’ she murmured, unable to believe it. Her eyes went to Charles, fearfully, expectantly, delightedly, as though checking to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.

He was smiling and holding out the key for her to take.

‘Is it mine?’ she asked, seeming almost afraid to look at the brand-new Mini again in case she was wrong.

‘Of course,’ he replied, knowing he’d treasure this precious moment for ever. Nothing, but nothing gave
him as much pleasure as making someone happy, especially her. ‘Your dream car, I believe?’

Suddenly she was shrugging off her heavy backpack and running towards him, leaping into his arms and wrapping her entire self around him.

Laughing, he held her tight as she showered him with kisses.

‘I didn’t mean for you to get me one, you know that, don’t you?’ she insisted, clasping his face in her hands to gaze earnestly into his eyes.

‘But I did,’ he twinkled, and he couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy as they embraced again and again until the car was forgotten, and they went into the house to celebrate its arrival.

‘I’m going to call her Milly,’ she declared, when they eventually returned to the garage. ‘Milly the Mini. She’s so beautiful. I want to drive her right away.’ Her eyes came mischievously to his. ‘Can I?’ she dared him.

Having expected it, he said, ‘Of course. She’s yours so you can take her anywhere you like.’

‘But what about insurance?’

‘It’s in my name with you as an additional driver. I had to do it that way to get it here, but we’ll change it when you’re ready.’

Running a hand over the gleaming paintwork as though smoothing an exotic cat, she said, ‘How am I going to explain it to my parents?’

‘Well, I was thinking you might say you’d saved up the fees from your gigs,’ he suggested, not sure whether that would work or not.

Her eyes narrowed as they came to his. ‘It would have to make me extremely well paid,’ she pointed out.

‘Some of those people are extremely rich, and nothing less than extravagant with tips, especially when drunk.’

Apparently dismissing the concern for the moment, she opened the driver’s door and slipped in behind the wheel. ‘Oh Charles,’ she sobbed and laughed as she inspected the instrument panels and adjusted the seat to suit her height, ‘I want to drive it home, today. Can we do that? Will you come with me?’ Getting out again, she wrapped her arms around him. ‘Please say you’ll come. I want you to be with me the first time I drive it.’