The Vow (27 page)

‘
It’s for Zoë, but I can’t tell you why. I promised.’

‘
That’s very admirable, but I’m afraid that if you want my help you must break your promise.’

Lucy said nothing, she looked at him uncertainly and smiling he told her,
‘Whatever Zoë’s problem is, I can almost certainly make it go away but you are going to have to trust me, Lucy.’

She shot a meaningful glance at t
he back of Saule’s head.

‘
You can speak freely,’ Marcus assured her.

She hesitated for a moment, and then made her decision.

‘Zoë owes money to a loan-shark. She’s fallen behind with the repayments and now he’s threatening her. He sent a thug to the studio the other day. He pushed her about a bit and broke a load of her pots.’ Her voice rose in agitation. ‘Marcus, he said if she didn’t pay up by the end of the month he’d come back and break all of her fingers! It’s so horrible, she’s only a little dot! And if her hands were damaged like that she might never be able to work again.’

Marcus frowned.
‘Whatever made her borrow money from a Shylock in the first place? I know she’s a little outlandish, but she didn’t strike me as foolish.’

‘
She didn’t, it was her sister,’ Lucy explained. ‘Lyndsey still lives on the council estate in Lewisham where they were brought up. I think it’s quite rough. You know, high-rise blocks where the lifts never work, graffiti and used hypodermics everywhere. Anyway, Lyndsey has three children under five and her husband walked out on her a couple of years ago, just before the youngest was born. She borrowed some money the first Christmas to make sure the kids had a good time and then some more in dribs and drabs, but then it got out of hand. She’s on benefits and can’t get a job, so she couldn’t keep up with the repayments. The amount she owed got bigger and bigger; the interest rate is astronomical and every time she missed a payment it went up even more. This horrible man wanted her to work as a prostitute to pay it off.’

‘
Yes, I know just how it works,’ said Marcus grimly.

‘
Zoë was frightened that Lyndsey would get so desperate she would actually do it, so she took over the debt. It was okay at first, but the trouble with being a potter is that your income is rather erratic. She hit a lean period and now she’s behind with the payments too. She tried to borrow money from the bank but they weren’t interested because her earnings are unreliable, and she has no collateral like a flat or something. She won’t ask Spyder for help, not that he’s got any money, because she’s certain he would start trouble with the loan shark and get beaten up by the thug who threatened her.’

Remembering the tall but rather weedy Spyder, Marcus thought this was quite likely. He considered what he had heard for a moment and then asked,
‘Do you have a name for this unpleasant gentleman?’

‘
It’s Grant Pritchard, but he insists on being called Mr Pritchard. Apparently half the people on the estate owe him money and he’s been terrorising them for years.’

‘
Do you know which estate it is?’

‘
Yes, it’s the Turner Estate, which struck me as rather ironic considering what beautiful landscapes he painted.’

‘
You can leave this to me now, Lucy. There’s no need for you to get involved, or for Zoë to have to see this man again.’

‘
Really? Oh, thank you, Marcus!’ said Lucy with relief. ‘Zoë will pay you back every penny, you know. It just might take her a while that’s all.’

Marcus made no reply. He didn’t foresee the need for any money to change hands.

With his eyes still firmly on the road ahead, a slow smile of anticipation spread across Saule’s face.

~

Climbing out of the pool Lucy shook herself, sending a fine spray of water everywhere like a playful puppy after a dip in the river.

‘
Is there room on there for me too?’ she asked.

Marcus was stretched out on a hammock reading the latest issue of Catherine’s magazine and answered doubtfully,
‘Well, I don’t really think so.’

But before he’d finished speaking she had already clambered onto the hammock obliging him to make space for her. It was a tight fit and he had no choice but to put his arms around her.

‘You’re still all wet, Lucy!’ he complained.

It wasn’t often that she got this close to him so she decided to make the most of it. Laying her head on his tanned chest she stretched out until every inch of her nearly naked body was in contact with his. He appeared to have turned his attention back to the magazine, but in truth, he was reading the same line repeatedly. He gave up and let it fall to the ground. He stroked her wet hair and as she pressed even closer against him, she could feel the effect the contact was having on him.

‘Marcus,’ she asked softly, ‘can we talk about the celibacy thing?’

‘
No, Lucy, we cannot.’ He sounded weary.

As she started to ask why not, the phone sitting on a nearby table rang and he quickly disentangled himself as he went to answer it. Whilst he made golfing arrangements with Charles he kept his back to her and Lucy knew exactly why. You do want me, I know you do, she thought. So what is the problem! I may have to accept that I’m going to marry a treacherous bastard but I’m blowed if I’m going to live like a nun. I’m going to tempt you, and tempt you, until you give in!

~

Laurent watched Innes as she l
ay sleeping in the big oak sleigh bed which had been in his family for generations. He had woken abruptly at dawn and unable to get back to sleep was now sitting by the open window. He looked out onto the garden and beyond to a field of sunflowers just starting to turn their cheerful yellow faces to the rising sun. The shutters had creaked noisily as he pushed them back but the sleeping woman hadn’t stirred.

Innes Monferran-Sentenac had the dark aristocratic good looks of her family who had weathered centuries of change to remain as powerful and influential as ever. A year younger than Laurent, she was arrogant and rapaciously ambitious with an impressive intellect. He knew she could open doors for him, take him places he couldn’t get to alone, but she was almost too much woman for him to handle. So different to Lucy. Sweet Lucy with her gentle, loving ways. Lucy, who at one time had seemed so content with their life in a rural backwater, but was now planning to marry a multimillionaire businessman.

It had been Innes who unknowingly brought this unwelcome news home in the English newspaper she’d bought to while away the time on the flight back from a London business trip. For two weeks now he’d tried pushing it to the back of his mind unwilling to admit, even to himself, how much it troubled him. He had thought when he met Lucy that he had finally found the perfect woman. Independent enough not to cling onto him, but not so much so that she didn’t need him. Attractive enough to turn other men’s heads, but not so beautiful he dare not let her out of his sight. Not so modern she didn’t want to cook and wash for him, an increasing problem with French women, and intelligent enough to be a worthwhile companion without challenging his own intellect, unlike Innes. They had been so happy, but somewhere along the line it had started to go wrong and he knew he had to shoulder some of the blame. Lucy wasn’t perfect, but neither was he.

The breeze caught the unsecured shutters, rattling them enough to wake the woman he didn’t love and wasn’t sure he even liked very much. She propped herself up on one arm, watching him as he forced a smile, and then patted the bed alongside her. As he rose to rejoin her there he wondered if Lucy was happier than this in her new life.

~

Everything about
Paul Lake was smooth. His perfectly manicured hands, the tanned skin of his face, the fabric of his expensive tailored suit, even his voice, trained for so long not to give away the rough edges of its north London origin. He joined Culver at the bar where he bought the drinks; a first for the reporter who was used to always being the one who paid. It was early and the place was still quiet. A pretty barmaid was polishing glasses ready for the office workers who would soon flood in to quench their thirsts on yet another boiling hot day. When they had spoken on the phone, Lake had said he was unable to put a name to the man Culver was interested in, but could put him in touch with Jenny Wren. The price for this information was a seriously good plug for his bar in the Saturday edition of Culver’s column.

‘
Nice place,’ commented Culver looking around at the tasteful décor, plush furnishings, and the piano at one end where a young black man sat sorting out his sheet music.

‘
Yes,’ agreed Lake, ‘it works well. Piano bars attract a certain type of clientele. They spend good money and we don’t get much in the way of trouble.’ Like Culver, he was a man who liked to get straight down to business. ‘This is one of a chain of eight throughout London. It was the first to open, the flagship. I manage it along with three of the others. It has involved a considerable investment by the owners and right from the start they enlisted the help of a public relations company. That’s where your girl comes in. The outfit is called Blake Harman Associates and the first time I saw Jenny Blake, that’s her married name, I was sure I knew her. She’s tall, good looking with legs up to her armpits and long red hair. When I noticed the scar on her neck it all came back to me. She doesn’t recognise me, but I’ve lost a bit of hair and a lot of weight since those days.’

He thought with distaste of the sixteen stone tub of lard he had been at thirty. Fat, unattractive and going nowhere. The sum total of his achievements was that he managed a seedy little club in
Soho and dealt drugs as a sideline. He had no girlfriend, few friends and lived in a crummy bed-sit. Although it hadn’t seemed like it at the time, the closure of the Marquis de Sade did him a huge favour. Unable to find a job of any interest he decided to get out of London for a while and went to stay with his recently widowed aunt in Dartford who was glad to have a man about the place. It was through her that he met Ruth, and Ruth changed his life. Five years younger than him, she was pretty, feisty and ambitious. For Paul it was love at first sight. She took a shine to him too, he never quite understood why, but told him straight that she wouldn’t go out with a fat bloke, or an unemployed one either. She made him join Weight Watchers and the local health club, giving him eight weeks to start shaping up. It’s amazing what you can do with the right motivation. By the deadline he had lost nearly two stone and went on to gradually lose another two. Ruth took him to a good hairdresser, helped him choose new clothes and introduced to him to her boss who owned, amongst other things, a smart new nightclub for which he was recruiting staff. It was the beginning of a whole new way of life.

They married a year later and still had as much fun together now as they did back in their
Dartford days. The Club Amadeus had been a stepping-stone to a career managing high class clubs and bars throughout the country and abroad. He’d done well for himself. He lived in a spacious detached house in Chigwell, had an apartment in Malaga and drove a quality car. He watched his vowels, and with his good suits had developed a patina of sophistication a million miles from the man who had been hauled off to the police station that night twenty-three years ago.

‘
Anyway, I’ve come a long way in the last twenty years and I didn’t see why my staff, or my employers, needed to know about the Marquis de Sade so I’ve never said anything to her. And I don’t want her knowing this information has come from me. I still have to work with the woman.’

Culver assured him their conversation was completely confidential. He was getting that quiver of excitement he always had when he knew he was closing in on his quarry. He bought them both another drink and they sat discussing the bars and their forthcoming events so Culver could do them justice in his column.

With a nasty little smile, Lake commented, ‘Amusing that Jenny will be responsible for some very valuable publicity without even realising it.’

Culver left the bar in high good humour. If Delacroix was involved in the attack, and he could get this woman to name him, then he would be in a position to deal a body blow to the chances of any knighthood.

~

Stepping from the car Lucy hitched up her skirt to give Marcus a glimpse of lacy sto
cking-top and knickers so sheer as to be transparent. Catching the saucy look on her face he knew she had done it on purpose. It had the effect she was hoping for and he was obliged to pause for a few deep breaths before following her across the pavement and into the building’s large lobby.

Four other people followed them into the lift. Marcus stood at the back directly behind Lucy and placed a hand on her shoulder. The other hand slid up under the back of her skirt and he traced the stocking top with a finger. He felt her body stiffen and increased the pressure on her shoulder. His fingers moved up and stroked the silky crotch of her panties and it amused him to see the muscles in the side of her face tighten in an effort to appear calm. You need teaching a lesson young lady, he thought. Slipping under the filmy material he found his target and gently he slid his finger inside her. Lucy shut her eyes and bit her lip, struggling for control. The lift stopped at their floor, he removed his hand and with the other still on her shoulder guided her out into the corridor.