Chapter Twenty-Nine

Sunday afternoon, down by the river. The air was humid and heavy, lying over us like a damp flannel as the band set up the equipment. They’d brought a portable generator and a kind of small marquee, all paid for by Jazz, whose job, doing something unspecified and probably unspecific in an accountant’s office, seemed to have paid some kind of bonus.

I lay on the grass and sweated like a horse. Ash was helping to hump speakers around, wearing a tiny vest and shorts and probably, knowing Ash, a film of baby oil just in case a tasty punter should wander by. Even Flint had been dragged away from his great allotment plans for the afternoon, with the promise of free beer (in a cool box under the shade of the marquee, again courtesy of Jazz, I was definitely in the wrong job) and Ocean was somewhere on the periphery, trying not to catch anyone’s eye.

I had a kind of fizz of anticipation in my stomach that owed nothing to my forthcoming performance. Yesterday, while Cal was occupied with some technical stuff, I’d browsed through some of the files we’d copied from Luke’s laptop, reminding myself what a complete louse the man was, with his mass-produced I’ll-love-you-forever letters and his varying accounts of what his job actually entailed. He’d been everything, from a hair-stylist-to-the-stars in LA (only needing the money to open his own salon over here) to a racehorse syndicate manager (just needing the money to buy his own dead cert horse and put it through training). Whilst I was surfing through the emails, sniggering at some of the more flowery phrases, I’d found a record of an email conversation he probably hadn’t even known had been archived. I wouldn’t have taken much notice, except that the date was familiar.

At first I hadn’t known why, then it dawned. The twenty-seventh of May had been the first day of our weekend in Cornwall. The weekend that Luke had sent me off out to enjoy myself while he stayed in our room and ‘worked’.

Worked, my arse. He’d been hooked up to the internet, trawling dating sites for his next target, and it looked as though he’d found her. Argento was (or so she said, wouldn’t it be great if it turned out that she was a he?) living in Bristol, had recently broken up with her boyfriend of seven years and was beginning to put her life back together again. Luke had sent, the archive told me, twenty-five emails to her and received nearly the same number in reply from her. Perhaps ‘grooming’ would be a more accurate description of how he’d spent his time. He’d told her that he was newly single (his wife had, apparently, ‘left him for his best friend’ and he was finding it hard to trust again), from Wales, and a personal fitness instructor. He’d obviously picked up on her clues. She felt ‘fat and undervalued’ and was sure ‘her weight was what drove her boyfriend away in the end’. But she also mentioned owning her own home and having a private income … and he’d talked about being in Bristol soon.

Bloody hell, Luke Fry was good at what he did.

My name, shouted over a power chord, pulled me to my feet and onto the stage. The crowd wasn’t large, mostly families dotting the grass, enjoying the sunshine and ice creams. As we drove into the first number, others joined in until, nearing the end of the set, there were about a hundred people singing and clapping along with ‘Waterloo’. Spreadeagled on a bank beside the river, Ash, Ocean and Flint were sharing a beer. It was only then that it occurred to me to wonder where Bree was. Was it too hot for Grace to be out and about?

An instrumental break allowed me a drink of water and a longer look over the crowd. I could see Cal leaning against the van that had brought the equipment, moving lazily in time with the music, drinking wine from the bottle. He saw me notice him and raised the bottle in salute. In answer I stuck my tongue out, then the band changed song and I hurried back to the front of the makeshift stage, picking up my microphone.

Feedback hummed in the air, as Jazz flipped a switch, turning off my mike and grabbing his own. ‘Just something, um, yeah, to wrap up the set, a song for my favourite girl in the world,’ he announced. The rest of the band and I exchanged a look – this definitely hadn’t featured in rehearsals – and Jazz began to play alone, picking a tune out on his keyboard.

When it dawned on everyone what he was playing, they all joined in, bass first, then drums, then lead guitar. It was an old song, one we’d performed when we’d first got together, but was now so old-fashioned that we’d discarded it from the act in favour of The Human League and some of the less complicated Spandau Ballet. As I swung into backing lyrics, with Jazz fronting up, I saw what had triggered it. Bree was pushing the three-wheeled, all-terrain buggy over the grass, Booter and Snag on either side like overweight dwarf huskies pulling a sledge. We were singing ‘Miss Grace’ – satin, French perfume and lace indeed. Bree stopped pushing, staring up at the stage, up at Jazz, with an almost awestruck expression. She pulled Grace free of her restraining straps and held her against her shoulder, swaying her in time to the song. I was sure she was singing along. When the song finished, Jazz brought his mike up again.

‘I’d like to introduce you to Grace.’ He held out a hand. As one, the crowd swivelled until everyone was looking at Bree and the baby. ‘And her mother, the most fabulous woman in the world. And I know it’s soon, and I know you’re not divorced yet, and I know everything’s complicated but, Breeze, would you marry me?’

And the crowd, as they say, went wild.

I used the tumult to cover my escape, slipping off the stage sweaty and hoarse, and finding my brothers waiting for me.

‘That went well.’ Flint pressed a beer into my hand and I rolled the chilled can around my hot forehead.

‘All to plan, anyway.’ Ash shaded his eyes and looked over the crowd. ‘What’s she doing now?’

‘Crying, I think.’

‘Stupid bloody woman, doesn’t know when she’s well off. He’s a billion times better than that prick she was married to.’

‘Excuse me? What plan? Did you and Jazz cook all this up between you?’

Even Ocean smiled at that. ‘It was the best way. She needs romance.’

I looked over at Jazz, his hair standing away from his head with the static in the air and the heat, holding Grace against him with one hand, and Bree with the other. They were surrounded by people, and they were both smiling. It looked perfect, even though sweat was dripping from the ends of Jazz’s hair and Grace was making a face which indicated that a full nappy was on the cards.

‘Well, I guess being proposed to from a stage in front of a crowd is pretty romantic,’ I said grudgingly.

Ash blew a raspberry. ‘Hark at her.’

‘How about cliffs at midnight?’ Cal strolled up alongside us. ‘Would that be more your style?’

‘I don’t know. Is Cliff’s some sort of bar?’ I took the wine bottle from him and somehow everyone else slipped away and we were encased in our own little bubble of quiet. ‘It would beat down on one knee by a heap of dogshit anyway.’

‘Ah, anything would be better than being proposed to by a heap of dogshit.’ We’d not long been out of bed and he looked it, all tousled and unshaven.

‘God, you’re sexy.’

‘Look who’s talking.’ As he pulled me against his hard body (oh yes, he was sexually insatiable, I’m not sure who’s up for casting in the role but they’d better be able to portray the appetites of Casanova) I looked up over his shoulder and found myself fighting free of his embrace.

‘Shit.’

‘What?’ Hurt, Cal took a step back, let his hands fall to his sides. ‘What did I do?’

‘Not you, over there. It’s Luke! What the bloody buggery is he doing here? He’s supposed to be in Wales.’

‘It’s all right, he hasn’t seen you. Us. He’s far too busy with what he’s doing.’

From behind the cover of Cal, I peered out to where Luke was standing. He’d obviously been walking past and got caught up in the crowd scenes surrounding Jazz’s proposal. ‘He wouldn’t be here on purpose, would he? No, the gig wasn’t advertised. Jazz set it all up by himself. Well, I know now why, but he’s supposed to be in Wales.’

No, Luke was not in Wales. Instead, he was with a dark-haired woman. Nadine. Maybe he had seen me, and was working on his cover story for when I noticed him. I couldn’t take the risk. I took another few steps away from Cal.

‘Christ, I’ll be glad when next weekend is over.’

It was no good. I couldn’t risk that Luke had already seen me. Thank God Cal and I hadn’t been doing anything more than talking.

‘Luke. Hello, I thought you were off to Wales this weekend.’ It was the devil that made me walk over there, face stretched in a welcoming smile. I could have just made a call-me gesture across the intervening space. But a little demonic part of me wanted to know how fast Luke really could talk his way out of a situation.

‘Willow, how lovely to see you. We were on our way somewhere and we saw the crowd and … decided to come over.’

‘Yes, we’ve just finished. Hello, Nadine, fancy seeing you here, too.’

Oh, Willow, you complete bitch. Poor Nadine, she’s done nothing to deserve this. But Luke had obviously primed her. ‘Hello. I’m talking to Luke about showroom things.’

I could have followed this up. I could have forced her to talk for ages, to elaborate on the story that Luke had told her he’d told me, whilst all the while knowing that she thought he was someone, something else. But she looked pale and her face was hollowed and scared-looking. She was wearing a summer dress and my already suspicious eye detected a small bump under the waistline.

‘Look, Will, I’d better get on. Nadine is showing me where the council regulations say that I have to put my car park. There’s been a bit of a mistake, you see. I thought I could have it round the side, but, apparently, I have to have it somewhere away from the surface drains.’

He was eyeing me up and down as he spoke and I had a brief shiver of guilt. Was it obvious from looking at me that I’d spent the previous night wrapped around Cal? Did I look sexually sated? I thanked God for the blush-red cheeks that the combination of performing and the oppressive heat had brought. But no, it was just Luke. Ogling my breasts as though he wanted to rip my bra off there and then.

‘Talk to the face, ’cos the boobs ain’t listening,’ I muttered. ‘Nice to see you again, Nadine. I’ll call you, Luke, okay?’

Nadine granted me a cool nod, sucking her cheeks in as she did so. Luke looked over at Cal. ‘I see you’ve brought a friend, too. You’ve got so many male friends, Willow, I’m surprised you’ve got time for me.’

Oooh, Mr Clever. Not only had he managed to spin an on-the-spot story, but he’d managed to draw attention to Cal in such a way as to make me feel guilty. He’d ended his phrase with a self-deprecating little laugh, but I knew it for the warning it was. ‘You mention Nadine, and I’ll point out that you seem to be running around with half the male population of Yorkshire.’

I’m sorry. My parting remark probably means that my karma is now in negative figures and I’m going to have to suffer reincarnation as a jam-jar cover, but I couldn’t help myself. ‘I’ll see you soon, Luke. I’m really looking forward to next weekend.’

I saw Nadine blanche further and hurry away before she could throw up at me. Having spent the past twenty years as the thrower-upper, I was in no hurry at all to be on the shoe-splatty end of things. Although, I swallowed, experimentally. I couldn’t actually remember the last time I’d thrown up. Cal and I had a relationship. God, yes, did we ever, and I hadn’t been sick on him for ages. Maybe I had finally ‘grown out of it’.

We all went back to the house. Cal had promised to cook dinner, Jazz and Bree were high on each other, and even Grace was stunned into an unusual silence by the general air of bonhomie and levity which hovered around us all.

‘I think’ – Flint raised a glass – ‘that I’d like to drink a toast to Ganda, for all the changes in our lives.’

‘I’ll drink to Ganda, but I’m not sure what you mean.’ I moved the bottle to one side, so that Cal could put down a steaming dish containing apple and ginger-wine pie. ‘I didn’t get what he intended me to from his inheritance. I suppose you got the allotment, but Bree got Booter and Snag.’

‘Which, kind of indirectly, got me Jazz.’ Bree grinned. Since the advent of herself and Jazz as a couple, she’d become a lot more relaxed. Gone was the super-housewife personality. All right, she’d never be Slob of the Century but even so, only this morning I’d seen her throw a crisp bag at the bin, miss, and not instantly get up to throw it away properly. ‘It was when he kept coming round to help walk the dogs that I realised what a gorgeous man he really is.’

‘That and the hours of hypnotism he put in,’ Ash whispered to me. ‘It was like Derren Brown with spaniels.’

‘Sssh.’ I kicked his ankle.

‘And Ocean’ – Flint nodded at his younger brother – ‘is writing a book based on all the stuff Ganda left him.’

‘It’s from Ganda’s diaries and letters. The story of an inventor and some of the crazy gadgets he comes up with, and how he finds his true love.’ It was the longest, most coherent sentence I’d ever heard Ocean say.

‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, anyone?’

‘No, Ash, it’s much more realistic than that. Anyway, I’ve got a publisher for it and they want to publish some of Ganda’s other notebooks. Like Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, only with gadgets.’

Blimey. Ocean was almost fluent now.

‘What about Ash?’

‘Ah, well, my theory all falls down there a bit. Still got the twelve pairs of waders, Ash?’

‘Yep. But I’m taking them to the tip tomorrow, if anyone wants to come for a ceremonial seeing-off.’

I caught Cal’s eye and we grinned at each other. I hadn’t come so badly out of the inheritance thing. Maybe the half a million pounds hadn’t materialised, but I’d got Cal, I’d got a whole new life beckoning to me from fifteen acres of moorland and a small, white house. Oh, and a nose, in a matchbox.

I couldn’t settle at work on Friday. In fact, we were all edgy, twitchily enervated by the muggy heat, snappy with each other and miserable with overwork.

‘The twins wouldn’t go to bed last night, till midnight,’ Katie said. ‘They said it was “too hot”. Were you hot last night, Clive?’

‘I’m hot every night, darlin’.’

I looked at her. ‘Why do you even bother?’

‘I keep hoping he’ll break his programming.’

I fiddled with a notepad, tearing little strips off the corners, shredding them and starting again. I couldn’t concentrate on work, even though I knew I should. I had to get this article in shape before the paper went to press on Tuesday, and there were still the pictures to sort out.

‘Why don’t you go home, Will?’

‘What, and sit around thinking? Can’t. I need to be occupied.’

‘Go round to your man’s then. I’m sure he’ll occupy you.’

Clive went ‘hur hur’ in the background. Katie reached out a foot, depressed the handle under his chair and watched smugly as the seat shot downwards, causing him to bang his chin on his desk.

‘Cal’s busy, sorting things out for tomorrow. I don’t want to get in the way.’

‘Well, go and help your sister with the baby then. I’m sure she’d be glad of someone to take Grace out for a push so she can catch up with her beauty sleep.’

‘She’s busy, too. She’s moving in with Jazz.’

‘In with Jazz? Is she mad? His place is only a short hop from being an anthrax zone.’ Katie sighed. ‘I still think you should be somewhere else, Will. I’ll finish the article for you.’

‘Do you know what to say?’

‘Of course I do. Now, just go.’

‘If Luke rings …’

‘I’ll tell him you’ve gone home early to pack. All right?’

So I went home. The house felt strangely under-occupied without Bree and Grace. Ash had gone off to the tip on Monday and not been seen since, and even Flint had gone out somewhere, so there was complete quiet as I let myself in.

Thunder rumbled. The humidity made my head ache and I rested my forehead against the cool wall of the hallway, slumping against it with my eyes closed. I stayed like this for a few minutes. I felt flat and dopey with the combination of muggy air and the logistics for tomorrow, so the quiet was welcome. Outside I heard the birds stop thrashing about in the hedge, an unnatural peace descending as everything hurried for shelter from the oncoming storm.

Thunder rolled again and I straightened away from the wall. As I turned to go through the kitchen to the back door, I heard a rattle behind me and swivelled in time to see an envelope flutter to the floor, landing with a tiny pfff alongside the mat and sliding a few inches on the wood boards.

I recognised the envelope without needing to pick it up. Another of those anonymous letters, probably still saying ‘you can’t have everything you want’, although in a sudden rush of creativity the unknown sender had managed ‘I feel sorry for you’ (very big of them) and a couple of ‘I hope you learn your lesson’. Not exactly Shakespearian, but disturbing nonetheless.

This one, flopping to the floor like a dying goldfish, as my head pounded and the thunder bundled about, was the last straw. Angry, slightly scared and incredibly frustrated, I swept to the door and flung it open, leaping outside and intercepting the sender just before the garden gate.

‘Ow! You’re hurting me.’

‘Serves you right, Nadine. What the hell are you playing at?’

Sulkily Nadine rubbed her arm where I’d grabbed hold of her. ‘I’m not.’

Sorry, do I sound unsurprised? I’d kind of, sort of, almost figured it out when I’d seen her desk, an imagination-free zone filled with cutesy toys and knick-knacks, all hailing from the fuchsia end of the spectrum. Who else would write such curiously childish notes? And then, as though my disbelieving stare finally shook something loose in her head, she burst out, ‘He’s lying to you, he doesn’t love you and he’s not really going to marry you and he only went out with you so that you’d give him money. He loves me and we’re going to have a baby and get married and—’

‘Well, duh, dear.’

Nadine stopped, mid-tirade. ‘What? You knew?’ Her legs seemed to give way and her weight slumped against me. ‘But if you knew, then why are you going away with him this weekend?’ Her head began shaking from side to side. ‘He won’t sleep with you, you know. He’s told me about you trying to seduce him, wearing stupid underwear and prancing about half-naked to try and turn him on, but he won’t do it because he loves me.’

I rolled my eyes and waited.

‘And as soon as he’s taken you for every penny, we’re going to go to Canada and get married and have our baby and he’s going to buy a design company so that I can work with him and he’ll do the designs and I’ll be his model and …’

Now I was the one shaking my head. ‘Nadine. Listen to me. Luke Fry is a liar and a fraud. I know you won’t believe me because you love him, but come with me and I’ll introduce you to someone who can prove it. If we can’t convince you, then I promise I’ll forget all about the letters and you can go back to him and start your new life in Canada, okay?’

‘You’re hurting me again.’

‘It’s not far.’

Dragging Nadine, who moaned and protested all the way, I headed for Cal’s flat. When we arrived, I dumped her on his sofa and asked him to show her all the evidence we’d acquired against Luke Fry, and whilst I told her the story of how he’d used her, Cal dropped printed sheets in her lap. Everything we’d taken off his computer, all the letters he’d written to her, the emails, the files he’d held on me and the other women, the archived internet chats, everything.

At first Nadine wouldn’t even look at the papers. She kept looking from me to Cal as though hoping that this was just a simple abduction. It was when I began to describe how Luke had pretended to buy the flat, and how we’d had sex there, that she flinched.

‘He told you that he refused to sleep with me, didn’t he? That I begged, but he managed to keep me at bay with promises? And you were scared that he might give in, that maybe this weekend would be the one? Nadine, this weekend, after I’d given him the money, of course, he was going to skip out on both of us.’

‘No. We’re going to Canada!’ It was the first real reaction she’d shown.

‘Look.’ I showed her the conversation with Argento in Bristol. ‘Here. Where he says he’ll be coming to the South West on “business”. That’s next week. What’s the betting that this “phone call” he’s talking about making to her was where he set up a meeting? He’s going to meet her, Nadine – next week – with a quarter of a million pounds of my money in his pocket. He’ll make quite an impression as a successful personal trainer with that much ready cash to flash.’

‘I … don’t …’ Protectively Nadine clutched at her bump. Then with a small sigh she fainted and slid to the floor in a strangely serene tangle of limbs.

Cal looked at me. ‘What do we do?’

‘Leave her there for now. She’ll be all right. But we have to get her on our side, Cal. If she goes to Luke and tells him that I know all about him, he’ll drop from the radar so fast that even your boys won’t be able to track him.’

‘And we’re certain that she’s not part of it? That he really isn’t going to whisk her off to Canada for a good old colonial lifestyle in the Rockies?’

‘What do you think? He’s gone through any money Nadine had, and you’ve seen what he said to this Argento woman. Did that sound like a man who was planning to emigrate any time soon?’

‘She’s pregnant.’

‘Yep, poor and pregnant. He’s a wanker. Old news.’

‘I just meant, he is such a bastard. What a thing to do, get her pregnant knowing he’s going to run out on her.’

I flashed him a quick smile. ‘Can I leave her with you for a bit? I’ve got to go and make some phone calls about tomorrow, and she might take the story better from you than me. She thinks I’ve got an axe to grind.’

‘I’ll do my best. But what if she won’t co-operate?’

‘Then you’ll have to use your charm, won’t you?’

‘Which one? The shrunken human head or the silver horseshoe?’

‘Very funny.’

‘Willow.’ Cal reached across the prostrate body on the floor and took my hand. ‘You realise that if Luke even so much as suspects that you know about him, he might not just disappear. He could be dangerous.’

The thought had occurred to me. ‘That’s why I have to make sure that he is one hundred per cent convinced of my undying devotion to him. Plus, of course, I have the world’s most powerful aphrodisiac at my disposal.’

‘Mmm? It’s working for me, by the way.’

‘Oh this one wouldn’t work on you, you’ve got enough of your own. I’ll call you later, okay?’

‘Be careful.’ His eyes were guarded now. ‘I don’t want anything to happen to you.’

‘Not, I would bet, quite as much as I don’t want anything to happen to me. See you tomorrow.’ And I skipped off down the stairs, with the sting of adrenaline sharp in my mouth.