Under My Skin (23 page)

“A few months later my mother died and my father’s money came to me. There was quite a lot of it. We used it to set up in business. His first clinic and a small health club in the city, before such places became fashionable.

“And that’s how we started, Maurice and I. Not exactly the most conventional way to fall in love. But the only way I know about. And that’s how it’s been ever since. A sort of partnership. I’ve looked after him and the business, and he’s looked after me. Kept me from my Habsburg past. Maybe it was need as much as love, I don’t know. But whatever it was, it worked. Gave us both what we wanted.” She shook her head. “Even now every time I look in the mirror I see him reflected in my face. Killing him would have been like killing a bit of myself.”

Life stories. You hear a lot of them in this job. For this one read Pygmalion with a touch of Faust. But being extraordinary doesn’t necessarily make something untrue. And for what it’s worth, it didn’t feel like she was lying. By comparison, my own love life made thin dramatic gruel—sporadic moments of passion or obsession followed by long retreats of boredom and regret. On the other hand at least I didn’t find myself emotionally decomposing in the aftermath. And not just emotionally. Maybe there’s something to be said for not being that touched by a man.

I wondered briefly why they had not had children. Together twenty years—they must have thought about it. Maybe the physical ravages of pregnancy had always outweighed the passion and joy that any child might have brought. Theirs was, after all, a relationship of priorities. I looked at her. Beneath the left eye the skin on her cheekbone twitched a little—an involuntary movement, as if the strain of the hidden construction was beginning to take its toll. I had a sudden flash of a suspension bridge, tight and majestic, all the weight borne on a few shimmering steel cords. What happened if they snapped? It didn’t bear thinking about.

“So,” she said, “are you still working for me, or do I have to wait until the scientists prove me innocent?”

“They might be more help to you than I am,” I said. “I’m not exactly getting very far.”

She looked at me for a moment. “Perhaps that’s because you don’t know enough,” she said quietly. “I’m afraid there’s something I haven’t told you. At the time I didn’t think it was important, but now … well …”

Clients, always the same. Always a little added extra hidden away in the back of the brief. Just because they pay you, they think it’s their prerogative. I tell you, you need to be a mind reader to do this job properly. I looked at her. Sex, I thought. It’s got to be sex. “I’m listening.”

“About six months ago, not long after we’d bought Castle Dean and I was living here full time trying to get it started, Maurice came to me and told me that he was having an affair with a patient.”

Yeah. Bingo.

She gave a wry smile. “I already knew, of course. Well, cosmetic surgeons can be very powerful figures in women’s lives—as I know better than most. In the past there had been maybe one or two that had ended up in bed with him. But he was always very careful, and it was never serious. That was part of the deal between us. But this one was different. He told me it had started out casual, but that she’d become very involved and now she was threatening to go public over the affair if he didn’t agree to leave me and live with her.

“He said he was scared of alienating her. That he wanted to finish it, he just didn’t know how. It was typical of Maurice, really. Getting carried away with the power of his own creation, then expecting me to bail him out. Only this time I didn’t. I suppose I was angry he’d let it go so far. So I told him it was his problem. That if he wanted to leave me, I wouldn’t stand in his way, but that I wasn’t going to humiliate myself getting involved with some crazy woman who thought she’d found a way of blackmailing him for a meal ticket.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. But a week later he came back and told me that it was over. He didn’t say any more and I didn’t ask. He even bought me a present. A holiday in the Bahamas. While we were there, he asked me to give up the health farm and come back to London to live with him full time. To keep him from temptation, no doubt. In the end we compromised. I brought in Carol to run the place so that we could spend more time together in London.”

“And is that when he did the last face-lift?” I asked,
somewhat appalled by my cruelty, but needing to see her reaction.

Once again she surprised me by not being offended. “What do you want to know, Hannah? Whether or not the knife was a substitute for sex between us?”

You bet, I thought.

“The answer is no.” She paused and gave just the ghost of a smile. “Although maybe it was occasionally another way of showing commitment. Does that make any kind of sense to you?”

I gave a little shrug. Not really. But if I began to worry about ideology again, she might find herself without a private eye. And right at this moment she needed one. “What about the other woman?” I said after a while.

“She disappeared out of our lives completely. He never said who she was and I never asked. Months went by and everything was fine.”

“Until the letters started to come,” I said softly.

“Yes.” She paused. “Until the letters started to come.”

“Is that why you didn’t show them to him?”

“No. It never occurred to me they were connected. Not at first. I mean it was all in the past. He never mentioned her. No, I didn’t show him because I really didn’t want him disturbed.”

“Olivia,” I said quietly, “either you tell me the truth or I leave right now.”

She stared at me, then closed her eyes. “I swear I didn’t know they were from her. How could I? But yes, I suppose I didn’t show them to him because I didn’t want to take the risk. Whoever wrote them was obviously desperate. If it was her, I didn’t want him to feel responsible.”

“So what about me? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it had nothing to do with you,” she snapped. “Because whatever had happened between us before was private and unimportant,” she continued fiercely. Since it
seemed so important for her to believe it, I didn’t contradict her. Or at least not with words. She shook her head. “Anyway, from something he’d said at the time I was sure that the relationship had started when she came back to complain about some treatment or other. I thought if you were any good at your job you’d be able to find her from that description. And if it wasn’t her, if it was a genuine crank, then it was most likely to have been an angry patient anyway.”

Maybe, I thought, maybe not. I let her stew in it for a bit.

“Well,” I said at last, “is that it?” Because, of course, I was pretty sure it wasn’t.

“There’s one more thing. The afternoon before he died, when we had the row about you coming to the clinic—”

“You showed him a copy of the letter?”

She nodded, suitably impressed by my deduction. I decided not to tell her it hadn’t been that hard. “He was so furious at the idea of you spying on him that the only way I could get through to him was to tell him the whole story.”

“And he recognized the handwriting?”

“Yes. I saw it immediately in his face. But he didn’t say anything. He just told me that if any of this got out, it would ruin the business, and that I’d been stupid to get you involved. He said I should get rid of you immediately and that he’d handle it. He told me it had nothing to do with me and I wasn’t to worry. That he’d sort it out …” She hesitated. “I started to tell you that morning at the flat after … but you didn’t want to hear. You said you couldn’t work for me any longer and we should leave it to the police. But they were already looking for a reason to accuse me. If I had told them about the affair, they would have just twisted it against me.”

And there was some truth in that. Still … “Well, you’re not exactly convincing them of your innocence now by not telling them.”

She shook her head, and I watched that subtly older neck swallow a few wild gulps of saliva as she tried to keep back the tears. They had come out of nowhere, surprising her as much as me. She dropped her eyes and I waited while she struggled to regain control. At last she spoke again, but so quietly that I had to strain to hear her. “Maybe they’re right. Maybe I did kill him. I mean I was the one who showed him the letter. Maybe if he hadn’t seen it, he would never have … I mean he might still be here now.”

“Maybe,” I said deliberately, resisting the emotion. “But he isn’t and you are. And you don’t strike me as the kind of woman to let someone else destroy it all without fighting back.”

She looked at me and I thought I caught something of the old spark in her eyes.

“Anyway, if you don’t tell them, I’ll have to. Otherwise I risk getting done for withholding evidence. And I can’t afford that.”

She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. “All right,” she said. “I’ll tell them.”

“Fine.” I got up and went to the door. “Last question, Olivia. And I strongly suggest you tell me the truth. Do you have any idea who this woman was?”

She looked at me. Maurice had been right, she did have lovely eyes. The kind you could fall into. She shook her head. “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I keep seeing Lola Marsh in front of me. When she came to me that day and said that she wanted to work with Maurice, well, it was clear she knew all about him and the business already.”

“She’d never been a patient, though.”

“No. And I even checked her handwriting before you came in that night. It wasn’t the same at all. But I keep remembering her manner. That barely contained fury. Maybe you were right about that night. Maybe I shouldn’t have just let her go.”

“So why did you?” I said, though I already knew the answer.

“Because in the end it couldn’t have been Lola.” And she laughed. “Just think about what she looked like, poor squat little troll. Not his type at all. No, believe me the only infidelity that Maurice would have allowed himself would have been a beautiful one.”

G
rant, of course, was waiting outside for me. He’d obviously put himself on the line, letting me see her for so long, and he needed to know it would pay off. So I told him she’d made a confession, then counted to five before I added that it wasn’t quite the one he was looking for.

He was so eager to get back to questioning her that he didn’t bother to make sure that I had left the building. We didn’t even banter anymore. But then that was all right with me. I always lose interest when the plot picks up. Must be something to do with displaced adrenaline.

I didn’t even get a flutter when I bumped into Martha in the car park, all dressed and ready for work: white shoes, white tights, white uniform. Positively virginal. Except for the smile. “Well, well. The private detective—back so soon. How you doing?”

“Not bad,” I said.

“I hear I got the wrong girl. Sorry about that.” I shrugged. “It was an easy mistake. At least you got the right room.”

“Seems a bit irrelevant now, though, doesn’t it?”

“A bit.”

“How is she?”

“Mrs. Marchant? Upset.”

“Rich, though.”

“Yes,” I said. Hmm, add that to the list of motives and you could see how tasty the police must have found her. “I suppose she is.”

“They took away her car, you know.”

“Yes.”

“They must think they can find something.”

“Maybe.”

“She’s in trouble, isn’t she?”

I was interested in how sure Martha sounded. “Well, you obviously think so.”

She looked at me and for that second I thought she was going to say something else, something that would turn it all around, deliver it to me on a plate. Ah, the fantasies of private detectives. Instead she just laughed. “What do I know? I’m just the hired help.”

“Oh, I’m not so sure. I hear they left you in charge for a while.”

She grinned. “Yeah, can’t you tell? The place is running better already. Your shoulders are still in a bad way, though.”

“Worse,” I said. “Much worse.”

“Well, the offer still stands.”

“Thanks. By the way, what did you make of Lola Marsh?”

She laughed. “Thumbelina of the face packs? Well, she had me fooled.”

“So I should keep her on my list?”

She shrugged. “I thought he was stabbed in the back.”

“He was.”

“She’d have had to stand on a chair then, wouldn’t she?” “I suppose she would.” I smiled and opened the car door. Castle Dean would miss her, no doubt about it. “Oh, by the way, did you hear about your job?”

“Yeah. I got it.”

“Congratulations. So when do you go?”

“Er … I haven’t quite decided.”

Interesting. Maybe she’d got a taste for Carol’s power. Or maybe she’d just found a new playmate. I rather hoped it was the latter. That way at least somebody in this mess
would be having a bit of fun. She gave me a wave and headed off to her G5 sponge heads.

I played with the idea of Lola Marsh all the way up the highway. But although every which way she threw up more questions than I could answer, she still didn’t make my nerves tingle. Maybe I was just falling into Olivia’s trap, equating beauty with substance. But I don’t think so. Somehow, Lola just didn’t seem big enough to have done it. And I didn’t just mean size. I slid her back onto the B list.

At the end of the highway I stopped for petrol and a sandwich. The girl at the service station counter was painting her fingernails, each one a different color. Not Castle Dean style at all. I watched her as she used one hand to pull through the credit-card form, and wiggled the fingers of the other to dry her nails in the breeze. She was marvelous. Big and punky with tatty jeans, a skimpy T-shirt and methodically tousled black hair. Her body had that lovely plumpness that some young women get in their early twenties, a puppy-dog quality to the flesh, rich and generous. As she pushed the form across the counter to me, the open-armed T-shirt exposed a flash of a ripe breast. She grinned and hoisted her shoulder strap up a little higher. After so much worked-over flesh it was a pleasure to see somebody so unself-conscious about her body. But then, of course, it was presumably her own. Would Maurice Marchant have fancied her? I wondered. Those perfect natural curves? Or was his lust, as I suspected, more narcissistic than that?