The Love Letter by Lucinda Riley (21)

21

Joanna stared at her computer screen, then flicked through her thesaurus to try and find new and inspiring ways of describing the bliss on a particular spaniel’s face as he noisily ate his way through the bowl of dog food he was testing. She also had toothache. After her lunch break, it had become grim enough for her to ask Alice for the number of a dentist where she could get an emergency appointment.

Her extension rang and she picked up the phone. ‘Joanna Haslam.’

‘It’s me, darling.’

‘Oh, hi,’ she said to Marcus, lowering her voice so nobody could hear her.

‘Are you ready to forgive me yet? I’m virtually bankrupting myself with all these flowers I’ve sent you.’

Joanna glanced at the three vases full of roses that had arrived over the past couple of days and suppressed a smile. The truth was, she’d missed him. In fact, more than missed him . . . ‘I might be, yes.’

‘Good, because I have some information for you, something that Zoe told me.’

‘What is it?’

‘Tell me your fax number. Given the circumstances, I can’t email or say what it is on the phone. I want to see if you come to the same conclusion I did.’

‘Okay.’ Joanna gave him the number. ‘Send it now and I’ll go and stand by the machine.’

‘Call me straight back when you’ve read it. We need to arrange a time to talk.’

‘Okay, I’ll call you when it’s through. Bye.’ Joanna put down the receiver and hurried across to the fax machine before someone else in the office could nab it. Waiting for the message to come through, she pondered yet again her feelings for Marcus. He was so very different from the serious and measured Matthew. And perhaps, with all his faults, was actually just what she needed. Last night, as she’d lain alone in her new bed, missing his arms around her, she had decided to trust him, take him on face value when he said he loved her, and sod the consequences. Protecting herself and her heart from further upsets was safe, but was that really living?

The fax machine rang and Marcus’s message started to come through.

‘How’s the toothache?’

She jumped and saw Alice behind her, trying to read the fax. Joanna pulled the message out of the machine and folded it.

‘Dreadful.’ Joanna walked back to her desk, eager to lose Alice and read the fax.

Alice propped herself on Joanna’s desk and folded her arms. ‘Miss Haslam, I see danger ahead.’

‘Alice, we face danger every time we eat raw eggs or step into a car. I’ll just have to take my chances.’

‘True. Bring back the days when women married their neighbours’ sons and were barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen! At least we didn’t have to worry about waging psychological warfare with men. They courted us and then they had to marry us if they wanted a shag.’

‘Oh please!’ Joanna rolled her eyes. ‘I for one am glad the suffragettes chained themselves to the railings.’

‘Yup, it’s allowed you to spend your days becoming a dog-food expert and your nights either alone, or in bed with someone you’re not sure will still be there the following night.’

‘Wow, Alice.’ Joanna eyed her fellow reporter. ‘I didn’t know you were such an old-fashioned girl.’

‘Maybe I am, but how many of your single girlfriends over the age of twenty-five are actually happy?’

‘Lots, I’m sure.’

‘Okay, but when are they most happy? Or you for that matter?’

‘When they’ve had a good day at work, or met a ma—’ Joanna stopped herself.

‘See?’ Alice grinned in triumph. ‘I rest my case.’

‘At least we have the freedom of choice.’

‘Too much freedom, if you ask me. We’re all too fussy. If we don’t like his brand of aftershave, or his oh-so-irritating habit of channel hopping when we’re trying to watch the latest BBC costume drama, we toss him aside and go off in search of fresh meat. We believe we must seek perfection and, of course, it doesn’t exist.’

‘Then surely I should stick to the man who’s currently interested, even if he isn’t perfect?’ countered Joanna.

‘Touché,’ Alice agreed as she slid off Joanna’s desk. ‘And if Marcus Harrison gets down on one knee, don’t question it, grab him with both arms. If he messes you around afterwards, at least you’ll have half of whatever he does to fall back on, which is more than you get when you break up with some rat with whom you’ve had a “modern”, noncommittal relationship. Okay, back to work. Hope my dentist sorts you out.’ She waved and walked off across the office.

Joanna sighed and wondered which ‘rat’ had just dumped Alice. She unfolded the fax from Marcus and read it.

A thought dawned on her. Perhaps Rose had actually been a lady-in-waiting? She dialled Marcus’s number.

‘Did you work it out?’ he asked her.

‘I think so.’

‘Let’s meet up tonight to discuss it.’

‘I’d love to, but I can’t. I’ve got awful toothache and I need to go to the dentist.’

‘Afterwards, then? There’s something else I really need to tell you and not over the telephone.’

‘Okay, though I might not be able to talk. Come to mine.’

‘Great. Do you miss me? Just a little?’

‘Yes. I do.’ Joanna smiled. ‘See you later.’

Tucking the fax into her jeans pocket, she switched off her computer, grabbed her coat and headed for the door. Alec was crouching at his desk, hiding from her as usual. She made a U-turn and went to stand behind him.

‘When’s my piece about Marcus Harrison and his memorial fund going in? He keeps asking me and it’s getting very embarrassing.’

‘Ask Features. It’s their shout,’ he muttered.

‘Okay, I . . .’ Joanna glanced at Alec’s screen and recognised the name at the top. ‘William Fielding. Why are you writing about him?’

‘Because he’s dead. Any more questions?’

Joanna gulped. Maybe that was what Marcus had wanted to tell her. ‘Where? When? How?’

‘Got beaten up a couple of days ago and died in hospital this afternoon. The Ed’s launching a campaign on the strength of it, trying to pressure the government into providing free security equipment for the old and infirm, and tougher penalties for the yobs that perpetrate the crimes.’

Joanna sat down abruptly in the seat next to Alec.

‘What’s up? You all right?’

‘Oh God, Alec. Oh God.’

He looked nervously in the direction of the Ed’s office. ‘What, Jo?’

She tried to clear her thoughts. ‘He . . . William knew things about Sir James Harrison. This wasn’t an accident! It was planned, it must have been, just like Rose’s death.’

‘Jo, you’re talking crap,’ Alec snarled. ‘They’ve arrested a man for it.’

‘Well, I tell you now, he didn’t do it.’

‘You can’t know that, Jo.’

‘I can, Alec. Listen, do you want to hear or not?’

He hesitated. ‘Okay. But make it fast.’

When Jo had finished expounding her theory, Alec folded his arms, thinking. ‘Okay, so let’s say you’re right and his death was arranged. How did they find out so quickly?’

‘I don’t know. Unless . . . unless Marcus’s flat is bugged. He faxed me a few minutes ago, then hinted it wasn’t safe to speak on the phone.’ Joanna pulled the fax out of her pocket and laid it on his desk. ‘He said William had spoken these words to Zoe. Maybe she went to the hospital to see him before he died.’

He read the fax, then looked at Joanna. ‘You’ve worked it out, I presume?’

‘Yes. William was trying to say Rose was a lady-in-waiting. Alec –’ Joanna wrung her hands – ‘this is getting too intense. I’m scared, I really am.’

‘First rule until we know what you’re dealing with: be careful what you say at home. I’ve dealt with situations like this before, back when I was reporting on the IRA – bugs are bloody tricky to find, but I’d have a good look for them in your flat if I were you. Worst case scenario is that they were placed when your flat was ransacked. Maybe even inside the walls.’

‘And probably at Marcus’s too,’ she sighed.

‘For Christ’s sake, Jo, I think you should just leave well alone.’

‘I’ve been trying to, but it seems to keep following me around.’ She ran a hand through her hair in frustration. ‘I don’t know what to do, really. Sorry, Alec. I know you don’t want to hear.’ She stood up and walked towards the door. ‘Oh, by the way, you were right. I never did get that letter back. Night.’

Alec lit up another Rothman’s and stared at the screen. He had less than two years before he collected his pension and ended a fine career. He shouldn’t do anything to rock the boat. But then again, he knew he’d regret it every day for the rest of his life if he let this story go.

Finally, he stood up and took the lift down to the archives to gather as many cuttings as he could on Sir James Harrison, and to try to dig something up on a lady-in-waiting called Rose.

Joanna emerged from the Harley Street dentist two hours later, with her head throbbing from the drill and half her mouth numb from novocaine. She walked slowly down the steps and along the street, feeling decidedly woozy. A woman brushed past behind her and Joanna jumped, her heart beating far too hard against her chest.

Had they been listening that night at Marcus’s flat? Were they watching her again now? Joanna broke out in a sweat and purple patches appeared before her eyes. She dropped onto her haunches in front of a neighbouring building, putting her head down between her legs, and tried to take long, deep breaths to slow her breathing. Then she leant back against the railings that flanked the building and looked up at the clear night sky.

‘Damn it,’ she groaned quietly, wishing a taxi would arrive inches away from her and carry her off home. Staggering upright, Joanna decided buses and tubes were a non-starter tonight. She set off along the street once more, hoping she’d find a taxi in the maze of roads behind Oxford Street. She walked along Harley Street, constantly sticking out her arm to full taxis, turned the corner and found herself in Welbeck Street. This was where Zoe lived – number ten – she remembered. Zoe had written the address down for her after they’d had supper.

Joanna paused on the street, seeing she was standing almost directly opposite number ten. Another wave of faintness overtook her and she wondered if it would seem intrusive to knock on Zoe’s door and ask for a cup of hot sweet tea to help her on her way. She could see the lights were on inside the house and decided she’d go and knock on the front door.

Just as she was trying to stagger to her feet, she saw Zoe’s front door open. From Joanna’s perfect vantage point, she saw Zoe peep from behind the door, then another figure leapt out of a car in front of the house and ran up the short path towards her. The two of them disappeared inside the house and the door shut behind them.

Joanna knew she was gawping like an idiot. But she was absolutely positive she had just seen Arthur James Henry, Duke of York – commonly known to his family and the media as ‘Art’ – royal prince and third in line to the throne, walk into Zoe Harrison’s house.

Forty-five minutes later, having eventually managed to find a taxi, Joanna lay back on her new and very comfortable beige-coloured sofa, and took a sip of the brandy she’d poured to help with her toothache. She stared up at the cracked magnolia ceiling for inspiration. Forget letters from strange little old ladies, deaths of ageing actors, plots and conspiracies . . . Unless she was imagining things, she had just witnessed some kind of tryst between one of the world’s most eligible – and newsworthy – bachelors, and a young and very beautiful actress.

Who had a child.

A tremble of excitement travelled up Joanna’s spine. If she had caught that moment on camera, by now she could have probably netted a hundred thousand from whichever British newspaper took her fancy.

‘Zoe Harrison and Prince Arthur, Duke of York. What a story!’ she breathed.

Tomorrow she must do some research, find out whether the two of them had any past, or whether she should write off what she’d seen as a meeting of two ‘old friends’. She was seeing Zoe on Saturday. It might be possible to extract some information subtly. There was no doubt that a scoop like this would have her off Pets and Gardens faster than you could say ‘manure’.

Then Joanna groaned, horrified by her treacherous thoughts. How could she even think of blowing the whistle? She was going out with Zoe’s brother – whom she might, just might, be in love with – and she and Zoe had got on well enough for her to think there could be the basis for a strong future friendship. She also remembered sombrely what she had said to Marcus at their first meeting about welcoming the privacy laws.

The sad thing was that if the Prince and Zoe were having a relationship, whether she spilt the beans or not, the story would be broken in the very near future. The news-hounds could sniff out a scandal before the two people concerned had shared a first kiss.

There was a knock on the front door, and Joanna reluctantly got off the sofa to open it. Marcus grinned at her, proffering half a bottle of brandy.

‘Hi, sweetheart, how’s the toothache?’ he murmured as he went in for a kiss.

‘Better after a brandy, thanks. I’ve just run out, so this is perfect. You mentioned earlier on the phone that we had to talk . . .’ She trailed off as Marcus held a finger to his lips. Then he took out a piece of notepaper and handed it to her.

Joanna nodded, her suspicions confirmed. She turned up the CD player to full volume and they proceeded to conduct a thorough sweep of the flat, feeling for new grooves in the wall, along the floorboards, underneath lampshades, and the backs of cupboards.

‘This is ridiculous!’ Joanna sighed, forty minutes into their fruitless search. She slumped down onto the new sofa, and Marcus joined her. ‘We’ve been through everything with a fine-tooth comb, unless they’ve hidden something inside the walls,’ she whispered in his ear, trying to make herself heard by him over the music that was pounding out of the stereo.

‘Have a think – who’s been in your house since this whole thing started?’ he whispered back.

‘Me, Simon, you, at least four different police officers, three delivery men . . .’ she whispered, counting them off on her fingers, then paused.

Without further word, she leapt off the sofa to the landline telephone sitting on a side table in a corner of the room. She inspected the wire and felt along its length to where it led into the wall. Pointing at it, she looked at Marcus, her eyes wide. She put a cautious finger to her lips, then pulled him into the hall, grabbed their coats and ushered him out of the flat.

They walked down the quiet lamp-lit street, and Joanna could feel herself trembling. Marcus wrapped his arm around her tightly.

‘Oh God, Marcus . . . my phone . . . I was surprised at the time when the telephone engineer turned up without notice after I’d been burgled!’

‘It’s okay, darling, it’ll all be okay.’

‘It’s been there since January! All the things they must have heard! Alec warned me about this. What do we do? Do we pull out the line? How do we get rid of it?’

He paused, then shook his head. ‘No, or they’ll know we’re on to them. And just come back and replace it.’

‘I can’t bear the thought of them in my flat again! Jesus!’

‘Listen, Jo, we’re in a good position. We’re one step ahead of them, finally—’

‘How can you say that? We don’t know where the bugs are or how many there are.’

‘We’ll just have to be careful with what we say,’ he said slowly. ‘And where we say it. We don’t know if they can just transmit your phone conversations or are able to transmit all the sound in your flat. But we can’t let them know that we know. We’ll also have to be careful using our mobile phones – they might be tapping those too.’

She nodded, then bit her lip. ‘William Fielding’s murder wasn’t a coincidence,’ she said eventually. ‘I think that’s a certainty now.’

‘Wait, Fielding is dead? I thought . . .’

She nodded grimly. ‘My editor was writing up the article when I left the office. Apparently he died in hospital late this afternoon. This is getting dangerous . . . Shouldn’t we stop investigating? Just leave it be?’

Marcus stopped walking, and pulled her to him in a fierce hug. ‘No. We’ll sort this out together. Now, let’s go bug hunting again.’ He kissed her, and they returned to the flat.

Even more determined now, Joanna tried to think of all the areas of her flat that had remained untouched in the chaos of the burglary. She and Marcus felt along all the skirting boards and the architraves, until eventually, her fingers connected with a small rubber button, perched on the top of her sitting-room door frame. She carefully unstuck it and held it up into the light as Marcus came over to inspect it with her.

He tapped his nose, then replaced it where she had found it. Then he went outside to ring the bell and for the next thirty minutes, proceeded to come into the flat and out again as various outrageous characters, with a wide range of accents. Joanna had to conduct imaginary conversations with a Jamaican importer of rum, a Russian descendant of the Tsar and a South African game shooter. Finally, it was Joanna who had to step outside to try and control her – by that time – hysterical laughter. She decided that Marcus had missed his calling – he was a wonderful actor and mimic. When the game was finally over, Joanna removed the bug, wrapped it in layers of cotton wool, and stuck it unceremoniously into a box of Tampax.

It had been a long time since she’d laughed so much – and when they finally climbed into bed, Marcus made love to her so tenderly, it brought tears to her eyes for the second time that night.

I feel . . . happy, she thought.

‘I love you,’ he murmured just before his eyes closed.

As Marcus lay fast asleep beside her, Joanna couldn’t help but feel contented and protected, even given the tension of ‘Little-Old-Lady-Gate’ and their discovery tonight. Snuggling up to his warm body, she dozed off, trying to banish the nightmarish thought of ears in the walls by thinking about how she might love him too.

Simon knocked on the front door of number ten Welbeck Street at ten o’clock the following morning.

Zoe opened it. ‘Hi.’

‘Hello, Miss Harrison.’

‘I suppose you’d better come in.’ Reluctantly, Zoe stood aside so he could enter.

‘Thank you.’

She shut the door behind Simon and they stood in the hall.

‘I’ve given you a room at the top of the house. It’s not very big, but it has its own shower and toilet,’ she said.

‘Thank you. I shall do my best not to intrude. Sorry and all that.’

Zoe saw Simon was as uncomfortable about the situation as she was and her antipathy softened somewhat. Neither of them had any choice in the matter, after all. ‘Look, why don’t you go and put your stuff upstairs, then come down for a coffee? It’s the door on the left, right at the top of the stairs.’

‘Okay, thanks.’ He gave her a grateful smile. She watched him mount the stairs with his holdall, then went into the kitchen to put on the kettle.

‘Black or white? Sugar?’ she asked as he wandered into the kitchen ten minutes later.

‘Black, one sugar, please.’

She put the mug in front of him.

‘This is a lovely old house, Miss Harrison.’

‘Thank you. And please, if we’re to live together – I mean, under the same roof,’ she added hastily, ‘I think you’d better call me Zoe.’

‘Okay. And I’m Simon. I understand that having me here is the last thing you want. I promise I’ll be as unobtrusive as possible. I’m sure you’ve already been warned that I’ll have to accompany you on all your journeys, either behind you while you drive your car yourself, or, if you’d prefer, I’ll chauffeur you.’

‘No, I wasn’t told.’ Zoe sighed. ‘I have to go and pick up my son Jamie from school this afternoon. Surely you don’t need to come with me to do that?’

‘I’m afraid I do, Miss Ha—Zoe.’

‘Christ!’ Zoe’s hard-won calm was in danger of collapsing and turning to all-out panic. ‘I really haven’t thought this through at all. Who am I meant to say you are?’

‘Perhaps it’s best to say that I’m an old friend of the family, a distant relative, who’s over in London from abroad, and I’m staying with you for a while until I find a place of my own.’

‘You must understand that Jamie’s very bright. He’ll quiz you on exactly which side of the family you’re from and want to know the details.’ Zoe thought for a while. ‘You’d better say you’re a great-nephew of Grace, who was my grandfather’s dead wife.’

‘Fine. Then it might be easier if I drive you to the school this afternoon. I think your son might think it strange if he notices me tailing you.’

‘Okay.’ Zoe bit her lip. ‘And the other thing is, I don’t want any members of my family to know either. It’s not that I don’t trust them, but—’

‘You don’t trust them,’ he finished for her, and they shared a smile.

‘Exactly. Goodness, this is going to be so difficult. I mean, my friend and I are going shopping tomorrow. Do you have to come along with us too?’

‘I’m afraid so, but at a discreet distance, I promise.’

Zoe sipped her coffee. ‘I’ve actually started to have much more sympathy for the royal family and those connected with them. It must be a ghastly feeling, having no privacy in your own home and out of it.’

‘They’ve grown up with it, accepted it as part of their lives.’

‘It can’t be much fun for you, either. I mean, what about your home life? Do you have a wife, a family who misses you when you’re away?’

‘No. A lot of the chaps in this job tend to be single.’

‘I’m sorry you’ve got such a boring posting. I can hardly see international security agencies having my name on their hit list. I mean, nobody even knows about Art and me.’

‘Yet.’

‘Yes, well, it’ll stay that way for as long as I can make it,’ she said firmly, then stood up. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I need to go and do some stuff before I – we – pick up Jamie.’