Chapter 7
Four years later
‘Hooray, you’re home.’ Kendra pushed back her chair with relief. ‘I was about to turn into a desiccated husk.’
Mimi kicked off her heels and dumped the bags of shopping on the table, next to the laptop Kendra had been working on for goodness knows how long. ‘What would you do if I didn’t bring food back and cook it?’
‘Shrivel up completely and die of starvation, I suppose.’ Kendra tilted her head and drained the can of Coke that was probably her third or fourth of the evening. Left to her own devices, she would exist on a diet of crisps, toast and wine gums. Preparing meals simply didn’t feature on her radar. On the upside, at least she always did the washing-up.
‘You’re hopeless,’ said Mimi.
‘I know. What are we having?’
‘Chicken and bacon fettuccine, Caesar salad, lemon ice cream.’
‘Ah, Rob’s favourites. Are you making it to remind you of him, or does that mean he’s coming over later?’
‘He’s got the opening of the boutique hotel in Chiswick,’ Mimi explained. ‘But he should be here by ten.’
‘I’m starving now! We don’t have to wait that long, do we?’
‘You can have yours early.’
‘Well thank goodness for that.’ Kendra stretched and yawned extravagantly. ‘I’ll probably be asleep before he gets here. I’m shattered.’
But a bottle of wine was opened and they carried on chatting while Kendra finished off the pitch for a lucrative new account for the web design company she worked for and Mimi made the sauce for the pasta. They’d known each other for six years now, having first met when they’d both been sharing that terrible house in Bermondsey with ten other people. Then two years ago Kendra’s great-uncle had died, leaving her this tiny top-floor flat on Ladbroke Road in Notting Hill. When Kendra invited her to move in with her, Mimi had been over the moon, because who in their right mind would turn down such an offer? They were friends who got on well together, they didn’t annoy each other, and now they’d upgraded to Notting Hill. You couldn’t ask for more.
At five to ten the doorbell chimed and Kendra said, ‘That’ll be the Greek god. Want me to let him in?’
Mimi was busy sieving boiling water out of the pan of fettuccine. ‘Could you?’
‘Greek god, is that you?’ Shouting through the intercom, Kendra grinned when Rob replied, ‘Yes it is.’
‘Prove it.’
Mimi smiled to herself, because it was so nice that the two of them got on well together. When two single girls shared a flat, sometimes you had to grit your teeth a bit and pretend to like each other’s boyfriends, but Rob and Kendra loved to bicker and tease and had a great brother–sister relationship.
It made life so much easier.
‘You’re wearing those shoes again,’ Kendra complained when she’d buzzed him in. ‘I told you, they’re too pointy.’
‘Luckily, I don’t care what you think. I like them and my beautiful girlfriend likes them, and that’s all that matters.’ Rob came up behind Mimi, wrapping his arms around her waist and nuzzling the nape of her neck while she finished draining the pasta over the sink.
‘Fine then, look like a throwback from the nineties, doesn’t bother me.’ Kendra poured him a glass of wine. ‘OK, I’ll leave you two in peace now. I’m off to bed.’
‘Lightweight. Aren’t you staying to eat with us?’
‘Like a big old gooseberry, you mean? While you and Mimi get on with your lovey-dovey canoodling?’ She pulled a poor-me face. ‘I’m a sad singleton and it would just make me cry and cry.’
‘Plus she already had hers two hours ago,’ said Mimi.
Rob laughed. ‘Excellent. And thank goodness, now we can do our lovey-dovey canoodling in peace.’
But once Kendra had disappeared into her bedroom, he said, ‘Actually, is it OK if we don’t canoodle? It’s been a long day and I’m knackered.’
Ah, the relief; they’d been seeing each other for six months now and it was good that they could be honest. ‘Me too,’ Mimi said. ‘It’s fine. How did the launch go?’
‘Good, good. Apart from one of the waiters dropping a tray of canapés in the fountain out in the courtyard. And there was a decent press turn-out. The clients were happy. What about you?’
‘Not too bad. Couple of dodgy moments, but I managed to smooth things over.’ A year ago, Mimi had gone to work for Morris Molloy PR, the agency set up and managed by Rob Morris in the heart of Soho. It wasn’t the most sensible move, to become romantically involved with your boss, but sometimes these things happened; the attraction was just too powerful to resist. After a simmering few months of working together and not doing anything about the growing chemistry between them, they’d given in to temptation. And so far it was all going well. Rob was great to work for, dynamic and confident, and he was a great boyfriend too. All in all, the last six months had been pretty much perfect in every respect.
‘Go on then, break it to me gently,’ said Rob as they sat down to eat. ‘What kind of dodgy moments?’
Mimi had spent the day with one of their trickier clients. CJ Exley was a hugely successful thriller writer who liked to be adored by his public and didn’t take kindly to criticism. Having met him first thing off the plane at London City airport, she had taken him on a whirlwind tour of TV and radio stations, signing events and an interview with the Telegraph before getting him onto his flight back to Palma, Majorca.
Well, pouring him onto it, considering the number of vodkas he’d knocked back during the course of the day.
‘A woman at one of the signings told him she’d bought all his books in car boot sales, which went down as well as you’d expect,’ Mimi said drily. ‘He called her a cheapskate. Then some other guy piped up during the Q&A to say he thought CJ’s first couple of books were far better than the last few and didn’t it bother him at all that his writing was becoming more clichéd and formulaic?’
Rob whistled. ‘And he’s still alive?’
‘There’s a possibility his body parts got packed into a suitcase and flown back to Majorca. At this very moment CJ could be tipping them into the Med.’ She smiled. ‘No, I reminded him that he sells millions more books now than he did back then, so clearly millions of people know better than one rude guy who’s only jealous because he never found a publisher for his own work.’
‘Well done, crisis averted.’ Rob refilled her glass. ‘In his head, CJ does like to think he’s the hero of his own books.’ He paused to consider the possibilities. ‘Although brawling with a fan in a bookshop would generate a fair amount of publicity.’
‘Maybe not the best kind,’ said Mimi.
‘Not for him.’ Beneath the table, Rob gave her a playful nudge. ‘I’m thinking of the agency. It wouldn’t be bad publicity for us.’
The sound of a text arriving on her phone woke Mimi up from a deep sleep, purely because she was so unused to it happening. Following her dad’s death, when her sleep had been so fractured and elusive, she’d got into the habit of switching off her phone before bed so the random notifications didn’t disturb her any more than her own anguished thoughts did.
The difficulties had subsided after the first eighteen months but she’d kept up the practice. Except this evening she’d forgotten to do it. Reaching out, she groped around on her bedside table and opened one eye. The text was from Marcus, who knew she kept her phone turned off at night and wouldn’t be expecting a reply. All it said was: Give me a call in the morning xx
See? Messages sent in the middle of the night were never worth waking up for. Rolling onto her back, Mimi turned her head to look over at Rob and saw that his side of the bed was empty. He must have gone to the bathroom.
Five minutes later, when he still hadn’t returned, she pulled a dressing gown around her and went to see if he was OK. Had he been taken ill? He couldn’t have fallen asleep on the loo, could he?
But no, the bathroom door was open, the bathroom empty. Nor was Rob on the sofa in the living room, or in the kitchen . . .
Baffled, Mimi rechecked the bedroom and even peered under the bed. She was about to wake Kendra – who really didn’t appreciate her beauty sleep being disturbed – when she spotted the unlocked latch on the sash window that opened onto the fire escape.
It was a warm night; had Rob gone up to the roof terrace for some fresh air? Had he gone down the fire escape? But no, his wallet and phone were still in the bedroom . . .
Then Mimi’s heart jolted as she remembered a story he’d once told her about how he’d gone through a sleepwalking phase in childhood. Had he sleepwalked his way out onto the fire escape? Was he up on the roof right now, wandering close to the edge of the terrace without realising how high up it was and how much danger he could be in?
Oh God . . .
She hauled the sash window open, scrambled over the ledge and crept up the flight of metal steps. The urge to call out his name was strong, but she also knew not to startle a sleepwalker. In his state of confusion, the very worst could happen . . .
And when Mimi reached the roof terrace, she saw that the very worst was happening, but not in the way she’d imagined. Now she was the one in a state of confusion, because over there, dimly visible in the shadows on the padded garden sofa, were what appeared to be two people, and whatever it was they were doing, it definitely wasn’t sleepwalking.
Still struggling to make sense of the situation, she moved closer. They weren’t having sex, but they were kissing passionately, bodies entwined.
They were also far too occupied to notice her standing there, although it seemed unbelievable that they couldn’t hear the frantic tom-tom thudding of her heart.
Because the man was Rob, and it just wasn’t something you expected to witness, the sight of your own boyfriend wrapped around another girl.
As for the rest of it, her brain skittered away from the growing terrible realisation . . . No, surely not . . .
But Mimi knew she needed to get a grip and make some kind of decision here. Because there was no longer any getting away from it: the girl wasn’t some stranger she’d never met.
It was Kendra.