The Cinderella Moment
Gemma Fox

For my family and friends, especially Sam, Ben, James and Joe, Suey Newey, Claire, Milly, Sarah, Tracy, Charlie, Peter, Maggie Phillips and Susan Opie, and the mutts, Beau and Molly. Between them they help make my life interesting, richer, fuller, happier, warmer and considerably more hairy than it would be if left to its own devices.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

About the Author

By the same author

Hot Pursuit Gemma Fox

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

‘I need another couple of weeks.’

There was a long silence at the far end of the phone line and then the man said slowly, in an even voice, ‘James, we both know you’ve had long enough. I want my money back, every last penny – or…’ He paused. The quiet that filled James Devlin’s office was darker, colder and more eloquent than any or else.

James Devlin nodded even though he knew that the caller couldn’t see him. ‘I just need a couple more weeks, that’s all,’ he said, making the effort to keep his voice steady, calm, confident.

‘A week,’ said the man. ‘And if you don’t pay up then –’

‘I know,’ said James Devlin, to the empty burring line. ‘And what I don’t know, I can guess.’

1

‘So, would you like to tell us in your own words exactly why you’d like this job, Ms…Ms…?’ asked the woman, fishing around for a name. She had a face like a bullmastiff and a moustache to match. Had she never heard of waxing? Moustache fluttering in the breeze, the woman peered down at the application form in front of her. An application form with a ghost of pasta sauce smeared across the top right-hand corner.

‘Mrs Hammond,’ offered Cass helpfully. Not that anyone was listening.

‘Ms Hammond?’ the woman read. She smiled in Cass’s general direction, although it didn’t look as if she was experiencing any particular joy at the hand life had dealt her. ‘So…’ steepling her fingers, making determined eye contact, ‘why would you like to work for Peck, Reckett and Gore?’

Good question. Cass hesitated. There had to be a reason – she’d filled in the application form, posted it and everything. ‘Because…’ Cass took a deep breath, teetering, toes over the edge of the gaping crevasse that her mind had just become. ‘Because…’

The woman leaned forward a little more in a gesture presumably meant to encourage her, and as she did the draught from an open window sent a ripple through the forest of hair on her chin that Cass had been struggling to ignore.

Damn. Cass grimaced, fighting to concentrate on the speech she’d concocted on the way there, while trying to hold back a honking great giggle.

She glanced at the rest of the interview panel; God they were ugly. The opening bars of the giggle slipped out.

She mumbled an apology, swallowing the giggle down with a cough. What would happen if she told them the truth? Well, you’ve seen my CV; I’m not exactly spoilt for choice, am I? I need the money, my life is shit, my credit card bill would bankroll a small multinational, my son needs new shoes, and the man who swore he would love me until hell froze over and the seas ran dry has just buggered off with the girl who did our ironing, so not only am I heartbroken I’m also horribly creased.

The Moustache tipped her head to one side and, glancing at her watch, tried out another smile.

Maybe the truth wasn’t such a great idea after all.

‘Take your time,’ said one of the men on the panel. The one who had spent most of the last fifteen minutes trying to get a really good look down the front of her blouse.

Cass painted on an expression that she hoped would suggest cheery enthusiasm, tempered with reliability and competence – a bit of a tall order with only the one face, but worth a shot.

Smile, relax…Taking a deep breath, Cass started to speak. It felt as if she was launching a heavy dinghy, pushing the answer away from the side: ‘Well, I’m looking for a position that offers me a combination of interesting personal challenges, job satisfaction and a decent career structure – I think Feckett, Reckett and Snore can give me…’

Feckett, Reckett and Snore? Had she really said that? Cass felt a great breathless flash of heat and panic. Maybe her brain had just pretended, to keep her on her toes. Maybe they hadn’t noticed. She looked anxiously from face to face. Across the table the panel were nodding, yawning and fiddling with their pens.

‘…all those. This position seems ideal in…in, in lots of ways.’

It wasn’t going well.

‘…I’m a good team player with a mature approach to problem solving and good people skills. This project looks exciting and challenging and…and…’

Cass took another look, trying to work out how well she was doing. Did it all sound a bit too gushy? A bit too Miss World? A bit too, I want to help old people, learn to play the guitar and promote world peace? Maybe if she could master the pout, wiggle and flutter…

‘…a jolly good thing to be part of…’ Her voice faded. It had to be said that it wasn’t the greatest finish of all time. Did any of them really believe this bullshit?

Cass tried out another smile. Blouse-man raised his eyebrows a couple of times and then winked conspiratorially while sucking something troublesome out of his teeth. Cass held his gaze and the smile, wondering, when he’d said his role in the company’s new project was very much hands-on, how literally she ought to take that.

‘Well,’ said the Moustache briskly, glancing left and right at her two male compatriots. ‘Thank you. I think that just about covers everything. Thank you very much for coming in, Ms Er…er.’

‘Mrs Hammond.’

‘Miss Hammond. I think we’ve heard enough, don’t you, gentlemen?’

There was an outbreak of synchronised nodding and paper shuffling. Cass looked from face to face. What exactly did heard enough mean? Did it mean heard enough to know she was exactly what they were looking for, or heard enough to know that they wouldn’t employ her if she was the last creature walking upright on earth? Cass realised she still had her mouth open and snapped it tight shut.

‘It’s been a real pleasure meeting you,’ said the woman, without looking up.

Blouse-man got to his feet, signalling the interview was most definitely at an end.

‘Thank you,’ said Cass, scrabbling her things together and stuffing them into her handbag.

‘Thank you for coming today, Ms Hammond. We’ll be in touch over the next couple of days to let you know our decision,’ he said, easing himself out from behind the desk and guiding her to the door by the elbow. His handshake had all the charm of a bag of warm haddock. At the threshold Cass looked back into the shabby conference room.

The woman with the moustache was already thumbing through the next application and the third member of the panel – a tall balding man with a very pronounced Adam’s apple and a pigeon chest, who hadn’t said a single word during the entire interview – was busy picking his nose.

Cass nodded to the man by the door. ‘Thank you for your time. It’s been a pleasure to meet you,’ she lied.

He leered back at her, in a way Cass felt he hoped conveyed that lots of women felt exactly the same way.

Why would anyone ever want to commute?

The train journey home was hell. Worse than hell. It was hell with sweat and swaying and strange smells and people gibbering into mobile phones with earpieces so you couldn’t tell the difference between those who were just plain barking mad and life’s over-achievers, taking conference calls from Japan on the way home. And then there was the prospect of Danny waiting on the station platform with Jake – their next-door neighbour, who’d picked him up from school – asking her when David was coming home.

‘Will Daddy be home tonight, Mummy?’

No, actually, the man whose arse you think the sun shines out of is currently tucked up in bed with a girl half Mummy’s age who is thinking about how to spend the rest of her gap year, adultery not being that well paid.

There was no place for the truth there either.

‘No, sweetie, not tonight. How about we go home and cook some chicken dinosaurs and chips? And there’s ice cream.’ Not that he was so easily distracted.

‘When will Daddy be home? Will he still be coming on the school trip?’

‘I don’t know, sweetheart.’

‘To the museum? He said he would. He promised. He said me and him could sit together on the bus. Can we ring him when we get back?’ And those big, big brown eyes, David’s eyes, looking up at her. Cass closed hers and tried very hard not to lean against the man who was wearing aftershave so potent it cast a shadow.

The train had emptied once they got to Cambridge. Cass finally sat down; the seat opposite was strewn with newspapers and coffee cartons. There was the Evening Standard and bits of The Times and Guardian that people always left behind, some sections folded back on themselves, some tented. Travel, sport and lifestyle, slim catalogues for expensive gadgets, stair lifts and garden awnings, a colourful clutter of them.

‘Hi, sorry to disturb you – is that seat taken?’

‘Sorry?’

‘The seat? Is anyone sitting there?’

Standing opposite her in the aisle was a tall man with floppy dark blond hair, a tanned weatherbeaten face and a rather nice, white button-down oxford shirt, broad shoulders and – and? And Cass stopped the thought dead in its tracks. What on earth was she doing? How was it her fancying radar was still up and running when she was feeling so miserable? Even if it was on standby, this was most certainly not the moment to start eyeing up strange men. She was supposed to be feeling heartbroken, angry, hurt and hard done by – and she did.

‘No, you’re fine,’ Cass said casually. ‘Help yourself.’

‘Yours?’

‘Sorry?’

He indicated the great scatter of debris. ‘I wondered if they might be yours.’ He spoke slowly, as if there was some chance she was deaf or foreign.

Cass held up her novel without smiling. Did she really look like the kind of woman who bought three newspapers, two takeaway coffees, something hot and greasy from the sandwich stand, then gutted them all over the carriage? God, some people could be annoying. He mimed contrition. Cass flipped over the page and let her mind fix on the print. Now, where was she? Ah yes…Like a knitter finding a lost stitch, she picked up the end of the sentence she’d just read.

Across the small table that divided the seats, the man tidied and then settled down before picking up a review section. He had very long legs. It took him a while to get comfortable.

He smiled at her. It was a smile meant to placate and invite.

Cass sighed. She knew from experience that however grumpy or miserable she felt on the inside it didn’t show itself on the outside, nor was it conveyed in her tone of voice. It was a curse. Since she’d been a child she’d always had to tell people she was angry and then they would look amazed and say things like, ‘Really? I’m surprised. You always strike me as so easy-going and laid-back about life. I can’t image you being angry.’ This when she was livid. It seemed that, amongst a very rich repertoire of facial expressions God in his infinite wisdom had given her, he had left looks-bloody-furious off the drop-down menu.

The smile warmed up. Cass stared determinedly at her book.

‘It’s really good to sit down. I’ve been standing since King’s Cross.’

She nodded just a fraction; she’d been standing too, but decided not to mention it in case it encouraged him.

‘Long day,’ he said.

Cass wasn’t altogether certain whether that was a statement or a question, so didn’t say anything.

‘Me too,’ he said, as if she had. It was meant as an opening, she was meant to say something. He stretched. ‘It’s been a good day, though.’

Depends on where you’re standing, Cass thought grimly as she stared at the page; she had read the same line three times.

‘This is such a beautiful part of the country, people really have no idea.’

Was that in general or just about the beauty of East Anglia in summer? growled her brain. Cass closed her eyes; if she wasn’t careful, she was going to turn into a curmudgeonly old woman who talked to herself and who nobody loved.

What do you mean, turn into? snapped her inner bitch.

‘It is breathtaking, isn’t it?’ the man said, staring longingly out of the carriage window at the great rolling expanse of the fens. The fens, flat as a newly brushed billiard table, stretched from horizon to horizon as far as the eye could see. Picked out on the pitch-black soil were row after row of celery heads and lollo rosso lettuces in startling greens and scarlets, and above them a cloudless cerulean blue sky that seemed to go on forever. It did have a peculiar, unforgiving beauty.

Cass looked across at him; he was still smiling at her. Maybe it was time to admit defeat. It was obvious that he was impervious to indifference and people who couldn’t look grumpy however hard they tried, and whatever had happened to him that day, it was obviously an ice age away from Feckett, Reckett and Snore.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. It is.’

‘Good-oh.’ He grinned as if her response was a personal triumph. ‘There,’ he said with delight. ‘That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?’

Cass laughed. ‘What?’

He opened up the rucksack at his feet. ‘Do you fancy a peach? I bought all sorts of fruit from this fantastic street market. Kind of celebration. I’ve had so much to sort out, lots of financial stuff – but I think I may have pulled it off. I think it’s going to be OK after all.’ He pulled out a selection of brown paper bags and set them down on the table. Some were damp at the corners where things inside had been squashed.

‘Sorry, I’m sure you don’t want to hear all my woes. Oh, how about cherries? Look at these, aren’t they wonderful? Please feel free. Help yourself; there’s loads.’

Cass stared at him over the growing pile of fruit. He had to be mad or, worse, he was a social worker or a psychiatric nurse; maybe he cared in the community and got people to make raffia lampshades and sing ‘Kumbya’ while he played the guitar. Whichever it was, he was obviously relentlessly cheerful.

He grinned, shaking a bag in her direction. ‘It’s all right, I’m not mad – it’s just that I’ve had a really good day.’

Cass found it was particularly unnerving when people read minds, or told you they weren’t mad. He held out a peach. ‘Try one of these,’ he said. ‘They’re absolutely amazing. Really.’ He waved it at her again.

Cass took a bite. He was right.

‘Sadly, blah blah blah, high number of exceptionally well-qualified applicants. Blah blah, on this occasion you lucked out, chuck.’ Cass screwed the paper into a ball and slam-dunked it into the swing bin before taking a long pull on her coffee. ‘Another one bites the dust.’

‘Try and resist humming the tune, would you,’ said Jake. ‘From Messrs Moustache, Lecher and Nosepicker, I presume?’

‘Uhuh – the very same. I could have done that job standing on my head while juggling puppies and playing the banjo.’

‘Maybe you should have mentioned that in your CV.’

‘This is driving me nuts, Jake. I’ve got to find a job. I needed this job. I’ve sent out dozens of applications, I haven’t made the short list on half of them. What the bloody hell is wrong with me?’

‘Nothing. If it’s any consolation – and I can see that it probably isn’t – in this particular case it sounds as if it was already a done deal. They’d got someone in the frame but they’re still obligated to advertise.’

‘Bastards. What the hell am I going to do? I have to get a job. Maybe I should put a card in the post office window. Cleaning – or how about dog walking?’ She sighed. It was just after nine in Cass’s kitchen, the sun was shining and Cass was dressed in her interview suit. Well, most of it, the long-line flattering-for-the-pear-shaped-woman-jacket that she had bought on the recommendation of someone in the Mail on Sunday was hanging on the back of the kitchen door, well away from all the stray buttered toast, cat and dog hair.

‘Maybe I’ve been setting my sights too high. Don’t pull that face. I’ve got to find a way to earn some money, Jake. I’ve got a house, a dog, a cat and kid to look after, and you can’t do that on nothing. Maybe I should take in washing?’

‘What you need to do is go back and talk to your solicitor. David should be helping.’

‘He did, remember? He helped himself to the hired help and buggered off.’

‘Cass, if I made you a suggestion, would you promise not to slap me or go off on one?’

‘Depends. If it’s sex, then the answer is still no, Jake. I’m still way out there on the rebound.’ She mimed a far distant horizon. ‘And I draw the line at pensioners.’

He mimed deep hurt and then said, ‘And if it’s not?’

She smiled. ‘Try me.’

‘Well, I’ve got this friend –’

‘Fitting me up with one of your peculiar mates is the same as having sex. You’re my neighbour, we’re good friends, we’ve been good friends for a long, long time, and I love you dearly, but I don’t need you to procure men for me.’

‘Wait, wait,’ Jake said, holding up his hands in protest. ‘I wasn’t going to mention it, but please hear me out. I’ve got this friend who runs a little place in Brighton. Barney Roberts – you must have heard me talk about him. Anyway, he owns this great little gallery, deals in all sorts of art, there’s some workshop space, a craft and gift shop. He’s looking for someone to help him out for the summer.’

Cass glanced at her watch. ‘Your point being…?’

‘Barney is an awkward old bastard. He’s just had an operation on his back and needs a hand. Last time I spoke to him, he was like a bear with a boil on its arse.’

‘Uhuh.’ She took her jacket down off the hanger and slipped it on. ‘Take my advice, Jake: don’t ever go into advertising.’

‘I know it’s a long way away, but you can’t keep going through all this. You need a change of scenery – a break. What do you think?’

‘What do you mean, what do I think? I’ve just done a nine-year crash course in living with a miserable bastard. And, as you mentioned, it’s in Brighton. Lest we forget, Jake, I live in Norfolk. And at the moment, as things are, I can barely afford to live here, let alone there. I read somewhere that it’s more expensive to live in Brighton than London –’

‘Yes, but that isn’t the point. You need to change your luck, Cass, do something different. Underneath, Barney is basically a really good guy. OK, so maybe it’s a long way underneath at times – but he’s prepared to make nice and easy for the right person.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Well, for a start he’s got a great big basement flat he’s rolling around in, and he’s lonely.’

‘Oh, come off it, Jake – this sounds like procurement to me. I’m not a nurse. I’m sure Brighton is jam-packed full of people looking for jobs.’

‘Yes, but he doesn’t know any of them. He’s not good with people – he can be funny – and besides, I’ve already told him about you.’

‘Oh well, that was kind of you,’ Cass said grimly. ‘You told him about me? So I’m a charity case now, am I?’

‘No, but please think about it, Cass. I don’t want to see you go, but I do know that the offer is genuine. Barney is as straight as a die, and he really does need someone to help him out. I thought of you straight away.’

‘Because?’

Jake sighed. ‘Because you need to get away from here and stop mooning around. This way you could do some of your own stuff – paint, for God’s sake – and still work. You look awful, Cass. You’re not eating properly. When was the last time you picked up a pencil or a paint brush? Everyone is worried about you; you know that, don’t you? David is stupid.’

‘Everyone?’ Cass said thickly. The sound of David’s name still made something hurt deep inside her. How could she have been so blind? How was it she hadn’t seen it coming?

‘Everyone,’ Jake murmured, leaning forward to stroke the hair off her face. Cass looked up at him; Jake was sixty-five if he was a day. He’d come round the day she moved into the cottage with a chicken-and-bean casserole and a bottle of red wine and had been part of her life ever since.

Cass smiled up at him; they were probably as close as two unrelated adults could get, without romance getting in the way. She loved him and he loved her, which had sustained them even when they didn’t like each other very much. Like when Jake married Amanda (who had hated all his friends and especially Cass, although to be fair, eventually – so’s no one would feel left out – Amanda had ended up hating Jake most of all), or when Cass caught vegetarianism and with all the zealous enthusiasm of a true convert had referred to his superb Beef Wellington as an act of evil, barbaric bloody murder, during a dinner party for one of his best clients. The memory could still make her cringe on dark and stormy nights.

‘I’ll keep an eye on this place. It would do you good to get away from here for a while,’ he said gently.

Cass felt her eyes prickle with tears. ‘Don’t make me cry, I’ve got an interview to go to and mascara doesn’t grow on trees, you know. Took me bloody ages to do this eyeliner.’ And then, after a moment’s pause, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, Jake,’ Cass whispered miserably. ‘I loved David so much. Why did he leave me?’

‘Because he’s an amoeba,’ Jake said, handing her a bit of kitchen roll. ‘An amoeba and an idiot and a complete wanker. Anyway, all those people who love you thought you were far too nice and far too good to end up with a clown like David.’

‘I married an amoeba?’

‘You surely did.’

‘My parents thought he was really lovely,’ Cass sighed. ‘I suppose that says it all, really. You’d think by the time we got to our age it would be easier, that we’d have it all sewn up and sorted.’

Jake nodded.

‘And he hated you,’ she sniffed.

‘I know.’

‘She’s eighteen, Jake. Eighteen.’

He nodded. ‘I know.’

‘I thought I was doing her a favour. Some pocket money, baby-sitting, bit of housework. She told me she wanted to travel. It’s so sordid.’

‘I know.’

‘David kept complaining about her, saying she wasn’t doing things properly. Like he would know! How she annoyed him, how she was always getting in his way, and how we were paying her too much. I should have guessed, Jake. I should have known. That’s what makes it so terrible. How come I didn’t see it coming? I love him, Jake – I’ve got the worst taste in men.’

‘Your taste in men is legendary, Cass. Now just shut up and go, will you, or you’re going to miss the train. When you get back, we could take Danny and the dog down to the beach, if you like, and then I’ll cook supper.’

‘You’re such a nice man, Jake.’

‘With instincts like that, it’s no wonder you always pick total bastards.’

‘And wankers,’ said Cass, picking up her handbag. ‘Let’s not forget the wankers. You’re OK to pick Danny up from school today?’

‘I’ve already said yes, and I’ve laid in a stock of food shaped like extinct amphibians. Who is it today?’

Cass picked up a sheaf of papers in a manila folder from the kitchen table and read the letterhead on the inside page. ‘Dumb, Bum and Stumpy, looking for someone to work in Human Resources.’

‘You can do that?’

‘I can try.’

‘Cass, honey, this is ridiculous – you’re an artist.’

‘And a woman with a mortgage.’ Cass looked at him and sighed. ‘David said I needed to grow up and get a proper job. Now, hand me my briefcase.’

He picked it up and looked at it thoughtfully. ‘Where the hell did you get that from?’

Cass licked a finger and scrubbed at a smear of blue poster paint on the handle. ‘The dressingup box at Danny’s school; they said I could borrow it till the end of term.’

Jake looked heavenwards. ‘You don’t have to do this.’

‘I do. David told me that I see the world through rose-tinted spectacles and that my relentless optimism got him down. He said that I’d never be able to manage on my own in the real world without him. He said I was far too naïve.’

‘Come off it, Cass. He was being cruel, that’s all. You’ve got nothing to prove.’

‘I have, Jake. I have to show him that I don’t need him, that Danny and I can manage without him, thank you very much. And I need to do better than just manage – I need to do well. The worst thing I can do to David is be happy, solvent and successful.’

‘Yes, but not like this. Why don’t you at least think about Brighton?’

Cass nodded, even though she had no plans to give Brighton a second thought.

She checked herself in the mirror. ‘What do you think? Will I do?’ she asked, her attention on her reflection, doing a little half-turn so that she could check her back.

Jake looked her up and down. ‘Just the job. You put me in mind of a young Margaret Thatcher.’

Cass growled at him and headed for the front door.

‘So, what have you got to tell me, James?’ said a male voice with a soft Scottish brogue.

James Devlin, queuing by the ticket machine, tucked the phone under his chin and looked round, trying to work out whether he was being followed or just being paranoid. ‘Look, I can’t talk right now, but don’t worry, I’ve got the matter in hand. Everything will be sorted out by the end of the week.’

‘Well, that’s good news, I’m relieved to hear it. We’ll be in touch.’

James retrieved his ticket, dropped the mobile into his jacket pocket, picked up his suitcase and headed off into the crowd, eyes moving back and forth across the faces.

The railway station was busy. The platform was already crowded with travellers. Outside the ticket office a winding crocodile of small children in school uniform with rucksacks and packed lunches were waiting, getting increasingly restless and noisy, shuffling to and fro.

Cass bought a takeaway tea and, finding a reasonably quiet spot, ran through her mental checklist for the interview: notes, mints, the printout she had downloaded about the company from their website. Lipstick, hairbrush. The plan was a morning spent being shown around the company’s complex, a company film, a company buffet lunch and a series of informal company chats, followed by a company interview.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi?’

Cass swung round. The man with the peaches waved at her from across the ranks of mixed infants. This morning he was wearing a chambray cotton shirt in the palest blue that emphasised his tan and his big blue eyes, a cream linen jacket and darker chinos. He looked gorgeous. Cass rolled her tongue back in; this was not the moment. She really needed to get her fancying radar checked over.

‘Yours?’ he said, waving at the crocodile.

She laughed. ‘No, not today, thank God.’

He glanced down at her briefcase. ‘Another interview?’

Cass nodded and had another little go at the blue poster paint. ‘Don’t knock it. Apparently I’m extremely fortunate to have made the short list after a rigorous selection process. It says so in my letter.’

The man eased his way between the children until he was standing alongside her. ‘Congratulations. What sort of job is it?’

Cass pulled a face. ‘A proper one. You know, one with paper and deadlines and people on the phone wanting things.’

He nodded. ‘Sounds serious.’

He smelt nice. There was one of those tight pauses when nobody can think of anything to say, and then he said, ‘I’m going on a bit of an adventure today – a little trip – well, you know.’

Cass nodded; she had no idea what he was talking about, but was far too polite to say so.

Along the platform the crossing gates closed, the warning bell sounded, and a moment or two later the train pulled very slowly into the station.

The voice of the stationmaster echoed over the tannoy. ‘The train now standing at platform one is for London King’s Cross…’ A few doors up from Cass the crocodile scrambled noisily aboard, whooping and giggling and pouring on to the train like happy, brightly coloured ants.

‘Do you think perhaps we ought to get on?’ the man said, picking up a small suitcase and extending an arm towards the open doorway of the carriage.

Cass looked up at him; what a novel idea. She had rather hoped that, as soon as the doors slid open, he would jump aboard and rush to find a seat, but apparently not. The age of chivalry, it seemed, was not dead. Damn, just when she was hoping to have half an hour with a book, the computer printout and her thoughts, and not having to make polite conversation with someone she barely knew. Although he was cute. Make that very cute.

‘Why not?’ Cass said, hoping that Jake had been joking about her looking like Margaret Thatcher, at any age. Stepping up into the carriage, she headed down to one of the double seats with a table between, well away from the school children. She sensed him following close behind.

‘So, are you going through to London, then?’ he asked, as he settled down opposite her.

‘No. Just to Cambridge today.’

‘Oh that’s great – me too. Well, actually I’m going to Stansted. I’m off to Rome for a few days.’

‘Wonderful.’

‘Really?’ He looked interested. ‘Have you been?’

Bloody man. ‘I went there on a school trip, on a whistle-stop tour of the Renaissance. It was wonderful. I loved it. One of those places I’d really like to go back to, if I got the chance, and spend more time exploring –’

‘You’re interested in history?’

‘In art. In history – in both.’

He nodded.

‘I’m an artist.’

‘Oh right. But I thought –’ he nodded towards the briefcase – ‘interviews, people on the phone wanting things.’

‘Needs must.’ She reddened, not quite catching his eye, wishing she hadn’t started this conversation. ‘So is Rome your adventure?’

‘Kind of. I’ve got to go and sort out a little business over there. You know.’

Cass nodded and then, taking a book out of her bag, she made a show of settling in, shutting him out.

‘Good book?’ he asked, as the train pulled out of the station. ‘I love reading.’

Had the man no shame? She could feel him watching, smiling, waiting for a reaction, and at the same time her colour rising.

‘Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a complete pain in the arse?’ she said.

‘Not recently. So tell me what you liked in Rome and I’ll go visit it.’

‘Seriously?’

He nodded. ‘Absolutely.’

Cass considered for a moment. ‘Well, I suppose the thing that surprised me most was that you can walk everywhere – all the famous things are a stone’s throw from each other. The centre is wonderful but quite small, so you can walk from place to place, stop for coffee. The bad thing is every artist you’ve ever heard of has work there: da Vinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Raphael – the list is endless. And that’s without all the Classical Roman stuff…Do you know anything about art?’

He grinned. ‘I know what I like.’

Cass laughed aloud. God, fate was cruel. How come she had met him now?

There was a dog on the line just outside Ely.

‘Hi, this is Cassandra Hammond. I’m on my way to an interview this morning – yes, yes, that’s me – well, I’m afraid I’m going to be a little late,’ she said, her mobile pressed against one ear and a finger in the other. It could have been worse, at least there was a signal. ‘The train’s been delayed. No, nothing serious, fortunately. I am sorry about this, but I’ll be there as soon as I can. Yes, thank you, see you later.’

As she hung up, Cass grimaced. ‘Doesn’t look very good if you’re late for an interview, does it? They sounded OK about it, but it’s not a great start. Maybe I should have driven.’ It struck her that she was thinking aloud and she quickly shut up.

Not that the man seemed to mind. ‘People understand. I’m sure it’ll be fine.’ He glanced out of the window; across a stretch of open farmland, two burly men had caught a Collie and were busy bundling it into the back of a Land Rover. ‘At least you can ring in. I can’t ask them to hold the plane for me.’ He looked down at his watch. ‘It’s going to be cutting it fine if I’m going catch my connection.’

Cass groaned, feeling anxious on his behalf. ‘I’m sorry. What time does it leave?’

‘There’s a ten-minute window. The trouble is I’m not sure what time the next train goes if I miss this one. Damn, damn –’

Cass took a long hard look at her watch; not that it helped. She had no idea what time they would get there, or what time his train would leave.

‘We’re moving now. Maybe it’ll be OK. You never know, if your luck’s in, the Stansted train will be running late as well.’

He laughed and offered her a mint humbug. ‘So tell me where else I should go.’

At Cambridge he was up on his feet a long time before the train got into the station. ‘Wish me luck,’ he said, picking up his suitcase. And then, as an afterthought, added, ‘I could send you a postcard, if you like.’

Cass laughed. ‘What?’

‘A postcard. As a thank you. You know, small square of cardboard, arrives back about a month after you do, badly tinted picture of the Coliseum on the front, Weather lousy, wish you were here on the back.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Never more so,’ he said with a grin. ‘So how about it?’

‘How about what?’

‘Giving me your address. For the postcard – so I can let you know if I enjoyed your whistle-stop tour of Rome.’ Cass hesitated long enough for the man to add, ‘I promise you I’m not a stalker or an axe-wielding psychopath.’

‘And if you were you’d tell me, obviously.’

He held up his hands in surrender. ‘Obviously. Goes without saying.’

Cass considered for a second or two more, and then pulled the envelope containing the interview details out of her briefcase, emptied the contents and handed it to him.

He slipped it into his pocket and smiled. ‘Grazie.’

She giggled. It struck her as he hurried off down the train that she didn’t even know his name.

‘Have a great time in Rome,’ she called after him.

He turned. ‘I’m sure I will, and best of luck with the interview. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you. Ciao,’ he said, lifting a hand in salute, and then hurried down the aisle so that he was first at the doors. He was gone almost as soon as the open light flashed on.

Cass was far slower, gathering her thoughts and her things together. Notes, mints…

James Devlin, hurrying out towards the car park, felt pleased with himself. He’d set up a false trail, now he just needed to get into the city and pick up his car.

‘Excuse me?’ said a voice from behind Cass as she headed, embedded in the queue of travellers, down the aisle towards the doors.

‘Excuse me?’ said the voice again, more forcefully this time, followed by a hand tapping her sharply on the shoulder. Cass looked round in surprise.

‘Is this your phone?’ said a small plump woman. She held out a mobile towards her, so close it was almost in her face.

Cass squinted, trying to focus. ‘No, I’m afraid not – I –’

The woman waved it in the direction of the seat Cass had so recently left. ‘Only it was on the floor where you and your husband were sitting,’ the woman said.

‘My husband?

The woman nodded. ‘Yes. It was under the seat. It must’ve fallen out of his bag or his pocket.’

‘Oh – oh thank you.’ Cass looked out on to the platform, trying to spot her travelling companion, but there was no sign of him. Nothing, zilch. He appeared to have vanished into thin air. Maybe he had managed to catch the Stansted train after all.

The woman was still holding the phone out towards her and, without really thinking, Cass took it, thanked her again and dropped it into her handbag. She would ring him later, tell him that he’d lost it but that it was safe. Maybe it was fate; he was very cute. Cass reddened as the thought took hold and caught light. It felt so much better than the dull David-shaped hurt she’d had in her heart.

Outside the station, with one eye on the time, Cass grabbed a taxi and headed out towards the science park instead of taking a bus as planned. In the back of the cab she ran through the menu on the man’s phone.

She moseyed on down through names, numbers and text. In the phone book section she scrolled down until she found ‘HOME’ and pressed call. After three rings a BT callminder answering service cut in.

‘Hi,’ said Cass. ‘I just wanted to let you know that you left your phone on the train this morning. It must have dropped out of your bag or something. But don’t worry, I’ve got it and it’s safe, and –’ she laughed nervously – ‘it was nice to have your company. I hope your trip goes well…’ Cass hesitated. ‘I’m not normally so snappy. Things are a bit rough for me at the moment.’

What the hell was she saying?

‘So, anyway, I hope you managed to catch your connection, and have a great time…’ Cass paused. He was nice; he had been kind and funny and – OK, so maybe she had fancied him just a little even if it wasn’t the right time and didn’t make any sense at all. ‘If you’d like to give me a ring when you get back, we can arrange for you to pick your phone up.’ Cass laughed again. ‘Who knows, maybe I can return the compliment and we can have an impromptu picnic on the train or something. Anyway, you know your phone number, although I’m a bit worried that the batteries on your mobile might go, so I’ll give you my home number and my mobile…’

When she was done, Cass dropped the phone into her bag, paid the taxi driver and headed up the very impressive canopied shiny steel walkway into the huge glazed atrium of Caraway Industries, which appeared to be planted with a miniature rain forest.

‘Hi, and welcome to Caraway. So glad that you could make it,’ said an American guy coming out from behind the front desk to greet her. ‘You must be Cas-san-dra,’ he said, lingering lovingly over every syllable.

Before she could reply, he continued, ‘If you’d like to follow me, I’ll take you down to meet Artie and the rest of the guys. My name is Nathaniel T. Coleridge. I’m vice co-ordinator on our Human Resources initiative.’ With this he offered her his hand – as cool and limp as a dead eel – before clasping hers in a presidential handshake, all the while dazzling her with a smile honed to a sharp social point in California. Cass winced, indiscriminate gushing was so much worse than the Moustache woman’s barely veiled indifference.

Nathaniel, making deep meaningful conversation about planetary issues, global warming and the ozone layer in response to her casual remark about how much she liked the trees, led Cass down a huge spiral stone staircase – a homage to the nautilus shell and the genius of Fibonacci, apparently – to an impressive conference room with one glass wall overlooking a Japanese rock garden. The twenty or so other applicants for the various positions Caraway had on offer were arranged in a horseshoe of chairs around their host, who was standing behind an onyx-and-steel lectern, his great hands holding tight to the sides as if he was delivering a eulogy.

‘How-dee and welcome, Cas-san-dra,’ said Artie, waving her in. No quietly slipping in at the back with this lot. ‘Why don’t you come on down and take a seat with the rest of the guys. We were all just getting acquainted.’ A big bluff Scandinavian-looking man, Artie looked as if he would be more at home at a barn-raising in Minnesota than in Fenland’s answer to Silicone Valley.

Rather self-consciously, Cass took up her seat, arranged the little flip-up flip-over desk thing on the side of her chair, opened the complimentary Caraway introduction and orientation pack, all the while watched by her fellow job seekers. When she was finally settled, Artie began to speak. ‘Okeydokey, now, as I was saying…’

Artie’s voice was low, soft and even, with barely a flicker in pitch or tone or inflection. The sun shone in through the wall of glass, warming the room to a cocoon-like heat. After fifteen minutes or so, despite eating the complimentary mints and doodling on the complimentary notepad with a zippy Caraway complimentary roller ball, it was taking a colossal act of will on Cass’s part not to slip down in the chair and fall asleep.

Alongside her, a plump blonde woman in a trouser suit the colour of ripe plums had given up the struggle. A thin glistening guy-rope of drool clung to her bottom lip and tethered her head to her lapel.

Cass winced; it could so easily be her. She could feel herself starting to nod, just as the woman alongside her began to snore softly. It was like a siren call. She needed this job; she couldn’t afford to drop off. Cass snapped her attention back to Artie, who was now in full, albeit soporific, swing, giving an almost evangelical presentation on the benefits of working for Caraway – not merely a company but a caring family – when somewhere close by a phone started to ring. There was a little flurry of activity as everyone nervously tapped their pockets and bags and looked round to try and track it down. It rang and it rang and then it stopped for a few seconds and then it rang again, and then again. People started to move. The woman in the purple suit woke up with a start.

From the lectern Artie leaned forward. Breaking off mid-flow, he said, ‘Guys, would you like to check your cellphones?’

Cass looked round. Smugly. And still the phone kept on ringing and ringing, and then an icy finger of doubt tracked down her spine. Bugger. It couldn’t be, could it? Very slowly she opened her handbag. The ringing got louder. Not from her phone but from Mr Humbug-and-Peaches-Gone-to-Rome’s mobile. Home was phoning.

All eyes slowly turned and fixed on her.

Cass reddened and smiled sheepishly, mouthing apologies to the other applicants and Artie, whose perfect fixed smile made it look as if rigor mortis might well have set in.

‘Err, sorry, I – I think I really ought to take this,’ she said, making a break for the door. ‘Emergency. Family stuff,’ she lied. ‘I told them it would be OK to ring – I didn’t think they would – well, you know, obviously –’ Art lifted a hand and managed to widen the smile another notch.

‘Whatever it takes,’ he said, sounding as if he meant it.

Bloody Americans. Cass scurried across what felt like a mile and a half of shiny blonde wood floor to the nearest exit; she could feel the attention of the whole room following her. God, there was no way she could work for a company like Caraway, the people were far far too nice and way too squeaky clean.

‘Hello,’ Cass said, taking the call the minute she was through the door.

‘Who is this?’ a cultured female voice demanded furiously.

Female voice?

Cass hesitated.

‘And can you tell me exactly why you have got my husband’s phone?’ the woman growled.

‘I –’ Cass began.

‘There’s nothing you can say, is there? I told James that if this ever happened again it was over. Do you hear me? Do you understand? Do you? Over – no more chances. No more second chances. What did he tell you about me? Did he say that I’m cold? Difficult? That I don’t care? Did he? Did he? The bastard.’

‘Well,’ Cass began, ‘actually…’

‘Did he tell you that he’s got a family? I bet he didn’t. We’ve got two children – two beautiful children. I bet he didn’t tell you that, did he? Did he tell you about Snoops?’

‘Sorry?’ Cass spluttered.

‘Snoops adores him. We’ve had him since he was a tiny puppy. Just a baby. The bastard, how could he do this to us? How could he do this to Snoops?’ The woman began to sob. ‘I’ll hunt you down, you heartless evil bitch. How could you do this?’

Cass stared at the handset, not sure what to do next; she had left her home number, for God’s sake. If the woman had rung there first she also had Cass’s name and her mobile number, because they were on her answer-machine message.

‘Just tell me one thing,’ the woman bawled. ‘Have you slept with him? Have you? Please tell me that you haven’t slept with him.’

‘I haven’t slept with him,’ Cass said firmly in as even a tone as she could manage.

‘Oh God, I don’t believe you,’ the woman wailed. ‘How could he do this to me? How could he? After all that I’ve gone through.’

‘No, no really,’ said Cass, more emphatically this time, trying to calm her down. ‘I haven’t slept with him, cross my heart. I barely know him. We met on the train.’ This was crazy.

‘You cow, you cow – how could you?’ screamed the woman. ‘How could you sleep with another woman’s husband? You home wrecker.’

That did it. Cass had had enough; she snapped.

‘Whoa now, hang on a minute there, lady. I don’t know who you are, but I’m bloody sure I haven’t slept with your fucking husband, all right?’ she roared at the top of her voice.

Which might well have been an end to the matter if at that very moment Artie hadn’t opened the double doors to the conference room and said, ‘Are we OK out there?’

‘He’s with you now, isn’t he?’ wailed the woman.

Cass looked heavenwards. Artie’s smile didn’t falter. ‘Perhaps you should take a few moments.’

The train ride home was very uneventful.

There were five messages on the answer machine when Cass got in. The first was from the madwoman with a dog called Snoops, then one from David, one from the girl who did their ironing and one from the parents of the girl who did their ironing, and the last one – with the number withheld – was something that consisted mostly of sobbing and screaming, interspersed with snarling and possibly some swearing, but it was difficult to pick out because there was a dog barking frantically in the background.

Cass had just got to the end of them when Jake appeared through the front door, pulling on a sweater. ‘Danny’s ready, I’ve put the dog in the Land Rover, and a curry in the oven for when we get back from the b—’ He looked at her. ‘What?’

Cass pressed play, skipped the loony and went straight for David.

‘Hi, Cassandra, it’s David.’ As if she didn’t know. ‘Just a quick call. I think we need to talk. I appreciate that you may feel a little aggrieved at the moment, but, after all, marriage is a game of two halves.’ He laughed at what passed for a joke in his neck of the woods. Jake shook his head as the message continued. ‘So, I wondered if I might pop round one evening…Probably once Danny is in bed would be better, don’t you think? Wednesday would be good for me. After squash.’

‘Amoeba,’ spat Jake, pressing the skip button.

‘Hello, Cass, it’s Abby,’ said an uneven, rather thin, weepy little girl voice. ‘I just wanted to explain…you know, about everything and stuff.’

Jake groaned. ‘Do we have to listen to this?’

‘I don’t want you to be angry or anything,’ Abby interrupted. ‘It just happened, you know. I don’t think that either of us, we – you know, me or David – meant it to. Not really. It was just, you know, like, one of those things, and that, you know.’

‘Fuck, these things should be banned.’ Jake pressed skip again.

‘Er, hello there. This is Abigail’s dad here. We wondered if we could pop round for a bit of a chat one night,’ said a gruff no-nonsense voice. ‘We were hoping for some kind of explanation, really. I mean, me and her mum feel that Abby was in your care, technically. And we didn’t think –’

Jake pressed the button again. ‘Maybe you should arrange it so that they come round the same night as David?’ he said, skipping to the last one, the wailing and the barking. ‘What the hell’s that?’

Cass sat down on the bottom stair. ‘Snoops, possibly. What did you say your friend in Brighton’s name was again?’

Hidden away in his motel room, James Devlin slipped off his jacket, very carefully hung it up in the wardrobe, settled down on the bed with his hands behind his neck, and considered his next move.

2

A few days later, a Thameslink train slowed to a crawl and pulled into Brighton Station. Cass collected her things together and peered out of the grimy carriage window; she wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it. Brighton didn’t look at all like a seaside town, more like King’s Cross on a bad day, maybe even grimier. There were the sounds of seagulls, but Cass wouldn’t have been surprised if they were a recording being played over the tannoy.

Pulling up the handle on her suitcase, Cass made her way along the platform towards the exit, looking at the sea of faces as she did. Barney, Barney – what the hell did a bad-tempered artist called Barney look like?

Oh, there, that just had to be him: leaning against a pillar was a small plump man with grey skin, bloodshot eyes, a beard like a bird’s nest, and a lot of hair growing out of his ears. He was smoking a roll-up and wearing a nasty oversized well-stained sweater that would have passed muster on any self-respecting artist from eighteen to eighty.

She was about to walk over to him when a cultured voice said, ‘Cassandra?’ She swung round to be greeted by an elderly man who was leaning heavily on a walking stick. His thick silver-grey hair was slicked back and tucked behind his ears, and he was wearing an expensive, beautifully tailored grey suit and a paisley waistcoat. He looked like a well-heeled country squire.

‘Barney?’

The man extended a hand and smiled. ‘Absolutely. Delighted to meet you, my dear. Bartholomew Anthony Hesquith-Morgan-Roberts. Jake sent me a photo of you; it does you no justice at all.’

His deep, dark brown voice came straight out of one of the better public schools, pure top-drawer, clipped and nipped and terribly posh, and Cass – although she smiled and shook his hand – could feel the chip on her shoulder weighing heavy. David was an ex-public schoolboy too and the most terrible snob, and thought some of what he referred to as ‘her funny little habits’ anything but funny.

‘But do feel free to call me Barney,’ the man was saying. ‘Everyone else does, despite my best efforts to stop them. Still, it’s rather nice to give the whole moniker an airing once in a while. So, what did Jake tell you about me?’

Cass looked him up and down. Barney was tall and nicely made with broad shoulders, a generous mouth and a big hawkish nose that dominated his large suntanned face. She had no doubt that, in his day, Barney had been a total rogue – and most probably still was when he got the chance. He had bright blue eyes, and when he smiled his whole face concertinaed into pleats like Roman blinds and promised all manner of things.

‘That you’re a miserable old bastard,’ she suggested.

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘You know, it’s such a cliché, but sadly it’s absolutely true. I used to be a miserable young bastard, but it doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it? For years people – mostly women, it has to be said – have been convinced that I’m complex and deep, a wounded soul who needed saving from a cruel and uncomprehending world, but to be perfectly honest I’ve mostly just been in a foul mood for the last sixtyodd years. I was a dour and grumpy child, spent almost all of my twenties being annoyed about something or somebody, my thirties were worse, and I was absolutely unspeakable in my forties. It was such a relief to get into my fifties; people take it for granted that you’re grumpy then. My sixties have been an absolute dream.’ He paused. ‘I think it would be best if we took a cab. Getting a car in and out of here and then finding somewhere to park would very possibly have given me heart failure. Besides, it makes me swear dreadfully at people – who can, it has to be said, be bloody infuriating.’ He tucked the cane under his arm, grabbed hold of the handle of her suitcase and marched off towards the taxi rank at top speed, Cass having to run to keep up.

‘I thought you’d got a bad back?’ she said, scuttling after him.

‘I have,’ he grumbled. ‘I hate the fact it slows me down. Although my mood’s improved tremendously since the pain eased up. I’m bloody awful at being old. Jake told me that you have a son?’

‘Danny.’

Barney nodded gravely. ‘I hate children.’

Cass tried to work out if he was joking.

‘Is he quiet?’

‘Of course he’s not quiet. He’s six.’

Barney looked thoughtful. ‘Right. I see. And you’re expecting me to let you live in my flat with your noisy son, are you?’

Cass ground to a halt and glared at him. ‘Whoa. Hang on a minute there. Is this some kind of trial by ordeal? Because if it is, I’m not interested. Right now my life is about as messy as I ever want it to be. If you expect me to help you out and work in your gallery, that’s fine. But I don’t need to jump through hoops of fire to prove anything – all right? Is that clear? And being rude and then telling me you’ve always been like that doesn’t cut it as an excuse. Capiche?’

Barney stared at her and then nodded appreciatively. ‘I think we’re going to get along just fine,’ he said. ‘You remind me of my mother.’

Cass carried on glaring at him. ‘How do you really feel about children?’

Barney mulled it over for a few moments. ‘I hate them,’ he said cheerfully.

‘I’m sure, given time, Danny will hate you right back.’

Barney nodded. ‘Sounds like a very equitable arrangement. And you’ve got a cat called Bob and a dog –’

‘Called Milo.’

Barney smiled. It lit up his face like a flare. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful. I adore animals. Now, let’s find a cab. I thought we’d go to the flat first, leave your luggage there, and then we’ll come back into town once you’ve got your bearings.’

‘And look at the shop?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. It’s in the Lanes.’

‘Sorry?’ Nothing that Cass had seen of Brighton so far suggested there were anything approaching lanes within miles.

‘Have you never heard of it? It’s a magical little area, very arty – better than the rest of Brighton put together, in my opinion. You’ll love it. It’s between North Street and the seafront. It predates the Regency rush to Brighton; gives you an idea how the whole place must have looked when it was a fishing village.’

‘And your shop is there?’

‘Oh God, yes. It’s wonderful, whole place is like a North European souk – bohemian, busy, bubbling, vibrant. There are designer shops and hippie shops and gem shops and juice bars, all sorts of amazing little treasures nestled together. And, well, you’ll see – my place has an eye on the commercial; beautiful things designed for broader tastes.’ He paused. ‘We’ve got all sorts of wonderful old tut in there.’

Cass looked along the busy concourse. It certainly didn’t seem the kind of place you’d have problems getting staff. ‘And you want me to work there because…?’

Barney considered for a few moments. ‘Because I trust Jake’s judgement, and mine is bloody awful. Good help is still hard to come by, however old the cliché. I need someone who is versatile, enthusiastic and talented, and who won’t keep moaning about what a pain in the arse I am.’

Cass laughed. ‘Is that what Jake said about me?’

Barney nodded as they stepped up to take the next taxi in the rank. ‘That and the fact that you’ve got the most terrible taste in men.’

Barney’s enormous basement flat looked as if it could easily have belonged to the man on the station, the one with the hairy ears and the well-stained sweater. As Barney guided Cass in through the little outer lobby and then the galley kitchen that ran parallel to an enormous sunlit sitting room, he looked decidedly apologetic. ‘I need someone to take care of me,’ he said miserably.

Cass looked round. He was right. It was the most beautiful room – or at least it once had been – with large windows at street level, giving ample light even though they were below ground. By the enormous open fireplace stood a scarlet linen sofa and two huge armchairs draped with ornate embroidered throws. There was a gilt mirror on the wall opposite the windows, another above the fire catching every last glimmer of sunlight, and waist-height bookcases running all the way round the room, full of everything from first editions through empty milk bottles, cans of paint, cats’ skulls, odd shoes and umbrellas, to piles of what looked like striped pyjamas and a checked dressing gown. On one shelf stood a row of old clocks in various states of disrepair, while below them, on the broad bottom shelf, half on and half off the well-worn, well-chewed wood, lay a grizzled black and white greyhound, sound asleep amongst a nest of old magazines and newspapers, and an enormous ginger cat curled up against the dog’s belly. The cat watched their progress through one rheumy, world-weary eye.

Barney waved towards them. ‘The dog is called Kipper, because that is what he does best, and the ginger menace is called Radolpho. In the world of the brainless dog the one-eyed cat is king, and needs to be saved from himself, prevented from stealing from shopping bags, eating dog food and anything he can prise from the fridge, your plate or the bin. He likes to pee in the sink and the dog likes to have sex with stuffed toys…In fact, they both have very sordid tastes in general.’

The cat closed his eye, stretched and then settled down.

‘I really need someone to help me get the place under control,’ Barney said reflectively, flicking a long tail of cigarette ash into the bowl of a dead pot plant.

‘I can see that, but I’m not a cleaner or a housekeeper, Barney,’ said Cass, setting her suitcase down amongst the debris.

He looked aghast. ‘Good Lord, no – of course you’re not. I wasn’t suggesting for one moment that you were. But you could find one for me. I can’t do any of that kind of thing. I’m completely useless. I get myself into the most terrible muddles, get taken in and hire people who use my credit cards to buy sports cars and then steal my shoes. It’s dreadful.’

Cass looked at him. ‘Barney, you don’t need me, what you really need is a wife.’

He shook his head. ‘No, no, I don’t,’ he said emphatically. ‘No, I’ve had several of those and, trust me, while it sounds all very well and good in principle, it always ends in tears. Besides, my mother invariably hates them.’

‘Your mother?’

Barney nodded. ‘Extraordinary woman. She’s upstairs now, so I don’t have to worry about her quite so much, knowing where she is.’ As he spoke, he looked heavenwards. ‘It’s been a weight off my mind.’

Cass hesitated, wondering if ‘upstairs’ was a euphemism for dead as a stuffed skunk, but apparently not.

‘She used to be such a worry when she lived up in town. She pretends she is as deaf as a post, drinks like a sailor, is built like a wren, and has the constitution of a Chieftain tank. She terrifies me. I keep thinking the only way I’m ever going to get rid of the old bat is to shoot her.’

At which point Cass’s mobile rang.

‘I hate those things,’ grumbled Barney.

‘Is there anything you do like?’ Cass said in a voice barely above a whisper while pulling the phone out of her bag.

Barney considered for a second or two, apparently taking the question seriously. ‘Quite a few things, actually. Strip clubs, blue paint, those nice little cups they serve espresso in. Seasonal vegetables. Oh – that woman on breakfast TV with the fabulous…’ He mimed those parts that he was particularly fond of.

Cass decided to ignore him and looked at the phone to see who was calling.

‘Hi, Jake, how are you?’ she said, pressing the phone to her ear. He didn’t answer at once, which was ominous. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Well, it depends really,’ he said.

Something about his tone made Cass’s heart sink, although surely it couldn’t be anything too awful; she had taken Danny to her mum and dad’s to stay overnight. If anything had happened to him, then they would have rung her, wouldn’t they? What about the dog? The cat? In the split seconds before Jake began speaking, Cass’s mind was running down a mental checklist that included fire, flood, pestilence and sudden pet death.

‘The police have been round.’

‘What?’ The police featured nowhere on Cass’s checklist. Although hot on the heels of that thought it occurred to her maybe something had happened to David, something nasty and well deserved…

‘You know that phone you found on the train?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, apparently the man it belonged to has disappeared.’

Cass laughed. ‘Of course he’s disappeared – he was going to Rome.’

‘Unfortunately that isn’t what his wife said. Apparently he was meant to be going to some sort of shareholders’ meeting in London, and then going home. He hadn’t got his passport with him, and no one has seen or heard from him since.’

‘You can’t be serious. That was last week – what, four or five days ago?’

‘His wife has reported him as missing.’

‘The one who rung me? God, if I was married to her I think I’d go missing. She was a complete cow. He told me he was going to Rome.’

‘Whatever, they would like to talk to you. I’ve told them you’ll be back tomorrow.’

‘OK, I’ll sort it out when I get there. There’s not much I can tell them. How’s Milo?’

‘Fine – farting and scratching, and sound asleep on my sofa at the moment.’ Jake laughed. ‘He knows we’re talking about him; his tail has started to wag.’

‘And Bob?’

‘Sunning himself on the window sill in your kitchen about half an hour ago when I went round with a can of Felix. How’s Barney?’

Cass laughed. ‘Farting and scratching and –’

‘I’d worry if his tail starts to wag. He’s a good man. Bear with it.’

‘He’s barking mad.’

Jake was quiet for a few seconds as if considering the possibility. ‘Yes, but in a good way. Have you seen his shop yet?’

‘No, we’re going there next. We’re at the flat at the moment.’

Jake laughed. ‘Wait, it gets better. You’ll love it.’

‘I’m sorry. No comment,’ said Margaret Devlin weakly, raising a hand to fend off any questions, while pressing a large white lace-trimmed handkerchief to her exquisitely made-up face with the other. She sniffed, struggling to hold back a great flood of tears. ‘I’ll be issuing a statement through my solicitor later today, but in the meantime I would just like to say that this has been the most terrible time for our whole family. James’s death is a tragedy. I’d like to thank everyone for their tremendous support and help over the last few days. James was so very special, so very precious to us and everyone who knew him. I always saw him as a bright flame in an otherwise dark and uncaring world. Thank you.’

Margaret’s voice broke as she tried out a brave little smile on her reflection in the sitting-room mirror. Not bad at all. Although, if she was going to wear black, she would need a lot more lipstick and maybe some bigger earrings.

She leaned forward and adjusted the brim of her hat so that it framed her face a bit more and emphasised her eyes. Black was so chic, so flattering. She turned to gauge the effect. Perhaps she ought to buy a couple of new suits; after all, she wouldn’t want people thinking that she had let herself go now that she was a widow – and she would be able to afford it, once the insurance paid out. If James Devlin was dead, then Margaret would be a very wealthy woman indeed. Both of their houses paid for, the large endowment policy that had blighted their lives for so long would cough up, and she would finally be able to get her hands on all his assets: the boat, the villa in Spain, the flat in Paris, the plane, the stocks and shares, the Monopoly hand of properties he had bought to let. At last it would all be hers and she would be free of him – the tight, philandering, double-dealing, double-crossing, arrogant bastard.

James Devlin, dashing entrepreneur and man about town, always appeared so warm and affable to everyone else, but Margaret knew the truth; she knew how selfish and cruel and self-centred he could be. But if he was dead, that was a different matter altogether. She would get his pension, his savings, his classic car collection, and lots and lots and lots of sympathy. Death somehow wiped the slate clean and tidied away so many of life’s little misdemeanours.

And Margaret would have no problem at all mourning James once he was gone. Oh no, she would smile bravely and, in stronger moments, joke about what a card he had been. What a lad, what a character, but Margaret of course had always loved him, and James had always come home to her despite the other women and the gambling and the drinking and the string of questionable business deals.

She tipped her head to one side, trying to look philosophical and understanding. James Devlin was a man’s man in a world where such men were rarities. Margaret took another long hard look at her reflection framed in the mirror and made a mental note to practise looking up coyly under her eyelashes.

A flicker of movement caught Margaret’s eye; she swung round. ‘Get that fucking dog off the furniture. Now!’ she shrieked at the au pair, who had just appeared through the sitting-room doors.

‘How many times do I have to tell you that the bloody thing’s not allowed in here? Not in here, do you understand? Not – in – here. Put it outside in the run.’

‘But Mr Devlin, he loves Snoops,’ said the girl defensively, stepping between the dog – a wildly over-enthusiastic springer spaniel – and Margaret, to protect him from her icy glare.

‘Don’t you dare tell me what that miserable lying bastard loves. Put the dog out now. Look at the state of that sofa! Sodding animal, hair everywhere, and it keeps cocking its leg up the standard lamps and making the place stink.’

The girl scooped up the dog in her great big arms. It wasn’t just her arms that were big. She was heavyset and clumsy, with a face as flat and round as a full moon, hands like coal shovels, and a body like a pile of wet sacks. Margaret Devlin had gone to the agency and had personally chosen her from all the girls on file, just in case there was a repeat of the blonde Swede incident or the curvaceous Italian accident, which had resulted in Margaret having to whip a hysterical 23-year-old rabid Catholic off to a private clinic and pay her a year’s wages as hush money before sending her on a pilgrimage to Lourdes. Oh yes, James would be so much easier to deal with if he was dead.

‘And then you can go and collect Alison and Christopher from school.’

‘Yes, Mrs Devlin.’

Margaret checked her appearance again; the police had said they’d pop by to let her know how things were going, and she wanted to make sure she looked the part. Maybe black was a bit premature. She hurried upstairs to change into something navy or chocolate brown and put on a touch more lipstick…

‘Devious little bastard has done a runner. I should have bloody guessed. No backbone, no balls. I don’t like it when people take the piss,’ Gordie Mann said reflectively, almost to himself. He spoke with a soft Scottish accent. He was a businessman and banker of sorts – the sort that don’t offer internet access or radio alarm clocks when you open an account, but do come round and break your legs if you miss a payment.

He leaned across the table and looked vacantly into the middle distance for a few seconds before his attention snapped back to the small man in a beige mack seated opposite him.

‘The thing is, Mr Marshall, in a perfect world I’d like to find him and fix him and get my money back. But the problem is I’ve got to find him first – and that’s where you come in. There’s way too much police interest in this one already. He’s not just shafted me but all his bloody shareholders as well. If I go around shaking anybody’s tree, the Old Bill are going to be down on me like a ton of bricks. That bastard owes me. Him and his fucking “sure bets”. I should have known better. I should have sussed him out. Greedy wee git.’

Mr Marshall nodded. Not that he really understood dotcoms or futures or any of that crap, but he did understand revenge and frustration and a decent fee – unlike Gordie, who, he sensed, was more fluent in pain and fear. ‘So how would you like to start, Mr Mann?’

Gordie thought about it for a moment or two. ‘I thought you’d know.’

Mr Marshall nodded. ‘To some extent it was a rhetorical question. It’s usual in cases like this to start close to home.’ He took out a notebook. ‘You say that you know Mrs Devlin?’

Gordie reddened slightly. ‘Aye, I’ve known Margaret a good few years. Fine woman, is Margaret,’ he added, in a way that Mr Marshall suspected was meant to sound casual.

Mr Marshall tucked a stray thought away so that it didn’t show on his face. ‘In that case, I think we should start by paying Mrs Devlin a visit.’

Jake was right: Barney’s shop had to be seen to be believed. The main doorway was so low that you almost had to stoop to get through it and then immediately step down on to a broad flagstone floor. The windows were unmanageably small with deep sills, and Cass assumed that it would be dark and cosy inside. She was wrong.

Inside, the shop opened up like an Aladdin’s cave in a cavernous space. Part of the upper floor had been cut away, adding to the feeling of openness and light. A spiral staircase, made from what looked like a wisp of twisted silver and steel, led up into the room above, while modern prints hung on the chalky white walls, with long mirrors artfully catching every ounce of usable light. Nothing inside was dark or heavy – instead, jewellery was arranged in elegant discreetly illuminated glass cases set with salt-whitened driftwood and plaits of sea-tangled rope. Across the ceiling and down the walls thin curling bronze lighting tracks lit magical corners and hidden recesses. One was full of sea birds; waders and spoonbills made from seed pods and wire and other found objects, picking their way through a landscape of seashells and creamy white pebbles. In another alcove was a selection of silk flowers, so realistic that when she first walked by, Cass thought she could smell them. In a third was a flutter of butterflies made from crinkled handmade white paper, silver filaments and azure blue beads.

Cass stared; it was amazing and beautiful and impossible to know where to look next.

Behind the cash desk a tall languid blonde wearing manically tight jeans, an off-the-shoulder leopard-skin print top and a creamy fur stole uncurled herself slowly and smiled lazily in their direction. Barney extended a hand to introduce her.

‘Cass, I would like you to meet Daisy. She is a little cow. Between them, she and her bitch of a mother are bleeding me dry. She hates me, but other than that she is quite a nice girl. Although her taste in clothes leaves something to be desired.’ He glared at Daisy with what Cass took to be censure; not that the girl noticed. ‘It’s some sort of gift she has. She always manages to look like a cross between a streetwalker and circus performer,’ he said wearily.

Daisy pulled a face at Barney, although in amongst it all her smile broadened and instantly Cass could see the family resemblance.

‘Actually, we both hate him,’ said Daisy, warming to the subject. ‘He plied my mother with drink and drugs, seduced her, and then left her for a younger woman. It totally ruined her life and broke her heart, you know. She’s never really got over him.’

Barney’s jaw dropped and he stared at Daisy aghast. ‘Is that what she told you?’ he spluttered.

Daisy shook her head. ‘Good God, no. But since she can’t talk about you without swearing and throwing things, I’ve had to read between the lines and make it up. Is it all right if I shut up shop now?’

Barney took a moment or two to regain his composure and then said, ‘Another half hour.’

Daisy’s bottom lip jutted out grumpily. ‘Oh, go on. It’s been really quiet today.’

Barney was unmoved. ‘There may be a lastminute rush.’ Daisy was still not impressed, so Barney continued, ‘You see the opening times on the door, on that little sign? Well, when it says on there that we’re open, funnily enough, we’re supposed to be. Bit quirky, I know, but it’s an idea you can get used to over time.’

Daisy sniffed and carried on looking hard done by.

‘If you’ve got Daisy…’ Cass began.

‘Oh, but that’s just it – I haven’t got Daisy,’ Barney said. ‘Not only is she unreliable, but she’s off soon on her travels, on this gap-year thing that everyone does these days – and she is expecting me to help fund it. I told her she would have to work her passage.’

‘And believe me, I am,’ growled the teenager.

Hate had never looked so affectionate.

Barney turned his attention back to Cass. ‘So what do you think of my emporium, then?’

Cass shook her head. ‘I don’t know what to say. It’s amazing.’

‘I knew you’d like it. Wait,’ said Barney, holding a finger to his lips. ‘There’s more.’ Like a mad pied piper he indicated she should follow him upstairs.

‘Daisy, do the lights, will you?’ he said over his shoulder.

The gallery proper was painted white, the uneven walls with their odd-shaped bricks covered in crumbly flat whitewash, which brought out the beauty of the pale sanded wood floors. The ceiling opened up into a pitched roof space set with skylights and tiny twinkling halogen spots. The current exhibition was of abstract seascapes in the most wonderful soft blues, greens and golds. Cass was enchanted. Even more so when she looked at the current catalogue and realised the work was all Barney’s.

She stared at him. ‘For someone so horrible, you paint like an angel.’

He nodded sagely. ‘I know, it’s a complete bastard, isn’t it? I think we would all prefer to believe that talent is visited on the worthy, the humble and the genuinely deserving.’

Cass raised an eyebrow.

‘But you don’t have to worry,’ said Barney. ‘I’m none of those things. Now, how about I show you the studio, and then we can go and have an early supper? I’m starving. There is this wonderful little Italian place down the road. The staff fight all the time and swear at each other – I feel so at home. We’ll take Daisy so’s she doesn’t have to go home to her poor demented mother on an empty stomach. After you…’ He indicated a small door to one side of the gallery, set back in what should have been an outside wall or maybe the wall of the adjoining property. Barney grunted when Cass mentioned it.

‘The arse ache that’s caused me over the years. It’s a flying freehold. To be honest, I’m seriously thinking about renting somewhere else to work. I’ve got a room in my mother’s place, but I can’t work there – she never shuts up,’ he continued as Cass headed up a set of stairs that twisted round so sharply they were almost a spiral, while behind her Barney struggled and swore, puffing and blowing like a train. ‘Nag, nag nag; the woman is a complete menace. I’m sure my father only died to get some bloody peace.’

The room Cass stepped into had to be above someone else’s shop or storeroom. The roof had skylights and, in contrast to Barney’s domestic life, was almost clinically clean and tidy, practically spartan. Painted white, one wall was shelved from floor to ceiling, each shelf neatly stacked with sketchbooks arranged according to the dates running down their spines; albums, magazines and books arranged alphabetically; labelled boxes, jars of brushes, bottles of linseed oil and turps. There was a set of Perspex drawers filled with tubes of paint; neatly stacked tins of charcoal and pastels; a jam jar full of pencils which sat alongside another full of feathers and a third and fourth with brushes and palette knives. One shelf held a row of pebbles that ran unbroken from one end to the other. Against the wall adjoining the shelves, boards stacked in a metal frame, canvas stretched and ready in another. But all these things were so tidily and methodically arranged that the studio felt uncluttered. An easel dominated the centre of the room, the bare floorboards below it covered with a delicate filigree of spilt gold, blue and red paint.

‘Those bloody stairs play havoc with my back,’ grumbled Barney. ‘I keep thinking it would make a decent storeroom, but I’d only fill it up with crap. If you like it, you could use it – if you want to, that is,’ he added grudgingly. ‘There’s a kitchenette thing through there and a toilet.’ He waved towards another door in the far wall and then pulled a cloth off something fixed on a cantilevered arm to the wall opposite the easel. Underneath was a small television monitor, currently switched off.

‘It’s the shop,’ said Barney in answer to Cass’s unspoken question. ‘In theory, you could work up here and mind the fort, although in practice it is a perfect fucking nuisance. You just get into something and you’re interrupted by some bloody moron wanting to know if you sell T-shirts. And if you don’t go down, they get annoyed. Assuming you’re that quick. People are in and out before you can get down the stairs – nicking the stock, stealing money out of the till…Although I suppose the bonus is that at least you’ve got their faces on video for when you take the thieving bastards to court.’ He looked up at her. ‘So, when can you start? You are going to take the job?’

Cass shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ she said, trying hard to sound noncommittal, while knowing that she planned to say yes.

Once they had closed the shop, Barney, Daisy and Cass walked down to the restaurant, Barney and Daisy bickering all the way. Cass smiled to herself. Jake was right: a summer in Brighton was exactly what she needed.

Margaret Devlin looked at the man on the doorstep and said with genuine surprise, ‘Gordie, how are you?’ He was the last person she had expected to see.

He smiled. ‘More to the point, how are you, Margaret?’

Gordie Mann had a bluff rugby player’s face, broad cheekbones, the skin around his eyes cut and shaped by great swathes of scar tissue, and a nose broken and badly set more than once.

‘Bloody awful,’ she said grimly. He towered above her like a badly constructed crane.

‘I would have been round sooner, but I thought what with the law here and everything, you wouldn’t want any more visitors. I’m so very sorry to hear about James.’ He handed her a bunch of flowers.

Margaret Devlin looked coyly up at him. ‘You know that I’m always pleased to see you, Gordie. Why don’t you come in and have a drink.’

He nodded. ‘Don’t mind if I do, Margaret – only I’ve got someone with me.’ Gordie stepped aside to reveal a small, weaselly-looking man with thinning reddish-grey hair, wearing a mack and dark horn-rimmed glasses. ‘This is Mr Marshall,’ he said.

Margaret Devlin peered at him. ‘Mr Marshall?’ she said, both as a muted welcome and a question. She would have much preferred it if Gordie had been on his own. It wouldn’t be the first time that she had cried on his big broad shoulders.

Gordie nodded. ‘He’s working for me. He’s a private detective. We’re looking for James.’

Margaret Devlin stared at him. ‘But why? I’m not with you.’

Gordie smiled and, sliding a bottle of Gordon’s gin out of the pocket of his Crombie, said in an undertone: ‘How about I come inside and explain it to you?’

Margaret blushed and then stood aside to let him pass. Gordie Mann and Margaret Devlin went back a long way.

‘So, Ms…’

‘Mrs.’

The policewoman nodded. ‘Mrs Hammond, you said that you’d never met Mr Devlin before.’

‘No. What I said was that we’d met on the train before.’

‘Several times?’

Cass glanced at the WPC, wondering why the hell she should be feeling guilty, and at the same time annoyed that the policewoman was asking her the same questions over and over again in different ways, quite obviously and very heavyhandedly trying to catch Cass out.

‘Once. I met him once before. He gave me fruit.’

The woman nodded and looked down at her notes. ‘Peaches?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right. And are you normally in the habit of taking fruit from strangers, Ms Hammond?’

This was ridiculous. Cass stared at the small, dour policewoman trying very hard not to lose her patience, laugh or swear. ‘Well, it’s not something I do every day, no – but then again, on the whole most strangers don’t offer me fruit.’

The policewoman’s expression tightened. ‘Please, Ms Hammond,’ she said between gritted teeth, ‘this is a very serious matter.’

Cass nodded. ‘I don’t doubt it, but I’ve already told you everything I know. I had met this man once before. The second time we met he told me he was going on an adventure to Rome. He got off at Cambridge, told me he was going to catch the Stansted train, and that was the last I saw of him.’

The woman nodded and then said softly, ‘And the phone?’

Cass sighed. ‘What about the phone?’

‘You were handed it by a woman who –’

‘Who found it under the man’s seat, or on it – I’m not sure now. So, I rang his home number and left him a message to let him know he’d lost it, but that it was safe.’

‘And to arrange to meet him and give it back?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘And other than calling his home number, you haven’t done anything else to the phone, subsequently? Edited the phone book or deleted any information regarding incoming or outgoing calls, texts or anything?’

A small sleek silver mobile phone lay on the coffee table between them, all neatly sealed up in an evidence bag. As Cass’s eye moved over it, the policewoman smiled without warmth.

‘No,’ said Cass, wishing the bloody woman would just leave.

‘Mrs Devlin said that your manner on the phone was –’ the WPC read from her notebook – ‘“flirtatious and over familiar”.’

Cass reddened furiously. ‘I’m not sure that’s exactly how I’d put it. OK, he had been very friendly, chatty – very chatty. I didn’t know he was married. I certainly didn’t think I was leaving a message that would be picked up by his wife.’

The policewoman’s expression didn’t change. ‘So, you were attracted to Mr Devlin?’ She didn’t wait for Cass to answer. Instead she added, ‘You know, it wouldn’t be the first time that a woman was taken in by an attractive and plausible man, Ms Hammond.’

Cass stared at her, wondering if the WPC had met David.

The policewoman leaned forward, as if to imply that this was really just a cosy girl-to-girl-chat, and continued in a low conspiratorial voice. ‘And James Devlin is quite a charmer, apparently.’

Cass felt a growing sense of indignation; the insinuation made her skin prickle. ‘Meaning what, exactly?’ she growled.

The woman aped empathy. ‘Oh, come on, Ms Hammond. Meaning that James Devlin has a knack of getting women to do what he wants. He’s got quite a reputation, you know – bit of a ladies’ man, bit of a lad.’

Cass considered the possibility. All that grinning and bumbling boyish enthusiasm for life, she could see how that might work. ‘Uhuh. Your point being…?’

This was obviously not the answer the WPC was expecting. ‘What I’m trying to say,’ she snapped, ‘is that you wouldn’t be the first woman to be taken in by him.’

Cass was fed up of feeling put on, patronised and annoyed. ‘Look, let’s get one thing straight, shall we? I wasn’t taken in by him. He gave me fruit and a mint humbug.’

The policewoman glanced down at her notes. ‘A mint humbug? You didn’t mention –’ she began, the implication being presumably that if Cass had overlooked a boiled sweet, it was quite reasonable to assume that she might have overlooked a secret assignation, an extra-marital affair, or a plan to run away to Rome together.

‘Officer,’ said Cass, as politely as she could manage, which wasn’t very, ‘I think this has gone on quite long enough. I’ve got things to do, I’ve got to collect my son from school. I’ve answered your questions and told you everything I can remember. And I don’t think going over and over and over is going to help.’

The woman nodded and she and the young policeman she had brought with her got to their feet.

‘One more thing,’ the WPC said, while still almost bent double. ‘Your neighbour mentioned the fact that you are thinking about moving to Brighton.’

Trust Jake.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Cass, well aware of how defensive she sounded. ‘Just for the summer.’

The policewoman’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘Right. Any particular reason? I mean, why you’re thinking about moving there now?’

‘Why not now?’ said Cass.

‘You said that your husband is no longer living here with you and your son?’

‘No, what I said was that he had left me for the girl who did our cleaning. And no, I haven’t got any plans to set up a secret seaside love nest, if that’s what you are implying. I just wanted to take a break, think things through – the last few months have been tough.’

The policewoman stared blankly at her. Cass wondered if she was protesting too much, an emotion only equalled by her growing sense of frustration and fury. She made an effort to smile. ‘I don’t really see how this is relevant, but, OK, yes, I am moving to Bright –’

‘To meet Mr Devlin?’ the WPC asked quickly, as if Cass might not notice that she had slipped the question in.

‘No, not to meet Mr Bloody Devlin. I’ve been offered a summer job there,’ snapped Cass.

The policewoman nodded and scribbled something in her notebook. For all Cass knew, it might have been a note to pick up a frozen pizza on the way home. Whatever it was, she had had enough.

‘What sort of job?’ the WPC pressed.

Cass was already halfway across the sitting room, guiding the two of them towards the door. ‘In a gallery,’ she said briskly as she opened the front door.

The policewoman’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh yes,’ she said gleefully. ‘You’re an artist, aren’t you?’ She managed to make it sound like it was a career choice that was up there somewhere between mass murder and self-employed puppy-strangling.

‘Yes, I am,’ said Cass grimly.

‘Um, well, we’ll be in touch,’ said the policewoman. ‘And if you remember anything else in the meantime, or Mr Devlin makes contact, please don’t hesitate to ring.’ She handed Cass a card. Cass slipped it into her pocket; there was really no point in protesting.

Margaret Devlin had the most terrible hangover when she got up, although it could easily have been down to mixing gin with the sleeping pills that the doctor had given her. She hadn’t had that much. Gordie had had quite a lot, although the private detective, Mr Marshall, had had only one – a very small one at that, which probably said it all – explaining that he was driving and wanted to take notes during their little chat. Margaret narrowed her eyes, trying to reconstruct their conversation from the fragments she could remember.

It appeared that James had been involved with Gordie in some sort of business investments and Gordie wasn’t convinced that the police were working as diligently as they might to track James down. And over another G & T, Gordie explained that he had other ways and means at his disposal – things and methods not always available to the law, more direct methods. And then Mr Marshall explained that he was working for Gordie – but Margaret couldn’t remember the exact details now.

She had told them everything she thought might help. Mr Marshall had written down the phone numbers and name of the woman who had rung and left a message for James.

‘And you think that your husband and this Mrs Hammond were having an affair?’

‘Well, she said she had picked up the phone on the train. I mean, what sort of story is that?’

Mr Marshall didn’t say a word. Margaret sniffed; she could tell he didn’t believe her. And then they had all traipsed up to James’s office. At the door, Gordie and Mr Marshall pulled on surgical gloves, then searched the place from floor to ceiling and photocopied James’s diary and address books.

‘You can take them if it will help,’ she had suggested.

Gordie smiled and patted her hand. ‘Thank you, Margaret.’ And then he looked at his companion. Mr Marshall tapped the side of his nose and very carefully slid the books into a plastic carrier.

Now, stone-cold sober, sitting in her bedroom, Margaret cursed her naivety. She ought to have gone through the diaries and the address books and seen for herself if Cass Hammond’s name was in there. Men weren’t any good at that kind of thing. Margaret had a nose for codes and little hints and subtle marks in the margin. She had always caught James out before; she knew the signs. Bastard.

She dropped two soluble aspirin into a glass. The plink, plink fizz made her wince, and she wished for the hundredth time that she’d saved the woman’s answer machine message – all that bloody giggling and flirting. If they’d heard that, the police and Mr Marshall would have understood why she was so sure and so bloody angry.

Cass closed the front door behind the policewoman, laid her forehead against the wood, and closed her eyes. So far it wasn’t proving the easiest of weeks.

The only good thing was that the madwoman hadn’t rung her again, although Cass wasn’t convinced she’d heard the last from the hysterical, dog-loving, Mrs James Devlin.

By contrast, David had been bleakly sane when he showed up, a couple of hours or so after she arrived home from meeting Barney, which was quite a feat for someone red-faced, sweaty, with wet hair slicked slyly over his bald patch, wearing a bright turquoise tracksuit and carrying a squash racquet in a fluorescent green-and-yellow case. Seeing him made her heart lurch miserably.

‘The thing is, Cass, I need a little time and space to think about the future – our future,’ David said, sitting on the sofa, wringing his hands. ‘Well, all right, my future.’

‘Really,’ Cass said flatly. When they had been together she had never realised just how self-centred and conniving he sounded. Pain and the sense of loss made her see him so differently. Was it clearer and truer, or was it that betrayal coloured her vision?

‘There’s no need to be so negative, Cass. You see,’ he said, seizing on the word like a terrier grabbing a trouser leg, ‘to be perfectly honest with you, I think that’s the problem really, isn’t it?’

‘Sorry? I’m not with you,’ said Cass in surprise.

‘Well, you’re always so negative about everything, and so petty. For example, I’ve been here, what? Nearly ten minutes?’ He pulled back the sleeve of his tracksuit and peered at his watch to emphasise the point. ‘And you know that I’ve just walked up here from the sports centre, but you didn’t ask me to sit down and you haven’t offered me so much as a glass of water, let alone a cup of tea. It’s all a bit petty and vindictive, isn’t it?’

Cass stared at him; he was incredible. ‘David, the last time we spoke, you said my relentless optimism was the real problem, that my being so cheerful was driving you mad. Always looking on the bright side, no sense of reality, never taking things seriously – that’s what you said.’

‘I’ve had time to reconsider, since the…get some sense of perspective.’ He glanced round the room. ‘I’m parched. Harry Fellowes and I had a really cracking game. He sends his regards, by the way. Now, about that cup of tea –’

Cass looked at David as if seeing him for the first time; he really was a piece of work. How was it she had never noticed that before?

‘I thought as you said you didn’t want to see Danny, you weren’t staying for long,’ Cass snapped.

What on earth had she ever seen in him? And why, if he was so bloody horrible, did it still hurt so much? Cass watched him as he tried hard to hold his pot belly in, and sighed. Being a woman could be such a pain in the arse at times.

He was still talking. ‘I thought that you’d understand. It seems obvious to me – we really have to look at it from Danny’s point of view, Cass. I think that it’s better if he doesn’t know I’m here. I really don’t want to upset him.’

Cass nearly choked. ‘Upset him? For Christ’s sake, David, you’ve already upset him. You walked out and left us, remember? There isn’t a day goes by when he doesn’t ask where you are, or when you’re coming home. He misses you like crazy. He wants to see you. I’m running out of excuses as to why you don’t want to see him. He adores you, David. You’re his daddy –’

‘You see, there you go again – everything a huge drama. You’re so demanding and difficult, there’s never any room for manoeuvre with you, is there, Cass? You always see the worst in people,’ David growled.

This was not the way Cass saw herself at all. She struggled to keep the sound of tears and hurt and anger out of her voice. ‘Why can’t you come round and see Danny? Tuck him in and read him a story, take him out for the day. You could go to the zoo or the beach – or just take the dog for a walk.’

David avoided meeting her eye. ‘Cass, you have to understand that things are a little difficult for me at the moment.’

Oh, Cass understood, all right. Having a six-year-old around calling you Daddy probably didn’t go hand in glove with David’s new teenage sexgod ethos.

‘I am very concerned about the way you’ve interpreted things, the way you look at life,’ David continued.

‘You don’t think,’ said Cass conversationally, ‘while we’re on the subject of personality traits, that the main problem here is not my doom-laden, overly pessimistic nature, but the fact that you ran off with Abby, by any chance, do you?’

David looked shocked, or at least made a good fist of trying to look shocked, and then shook his head. ‘Is that what you’ve told Danny?’

‘No, of course that’s not what I’ve told Danny. I told him that Mummy and Daddy loved him very much, but that we couldn’t live with each other any more because Daddy had got a new friend.’

‘Oh, Cass, there you go again – you have to be in the right, don’t you? You have to be the good one. And you always jump to the wrong conclusion.’ He managed to make it sound like the summing up in the case for the defence, not to mention everything being entirely her fault. ‘Let’s face it, Cass, this thing with Abby – surely you have to understand it’s a symptom of the problem between us, not the cause?’

‘And what do you think the cause is?’ she prompted.

David looked almost apologetic. ‘Well, we’ve already talked about your attitude –’

Cass felt his words stoking up the murderous rage that had been growing in her belly for the last fifteen minutes. ‘Have we? And what do you think about my attitude?’

‘Well, it’s hard to know where to begin, really. I’m very conscious of not wanting to hurt you – but, let’s face it, you’ve always had a very naïve take on life. I suppose it’s all your creative brainpower –’ He laughed in an unpleasantly patronising way. Thinking about it now, he sounded a lot like the policewoman.

‘Unworldly.’ His expression suggested he was being generous in his description. ‘You know, sometimes I felt that being with you was too big a responsibility, Cass.’

She stared at him, noting the past tense and wondering who the hell he had been living with for the last nine years? ‘And are you saying that Abby isn’t a big responsibility? Please don’t tell me she’s very mature for her age,’ Cass snarled. She saw he was about to speak and held up a hand to silence him. ‘What the fuck are you talking about, David? You’re making this up as you go along. It’s complete and utter rubbish. This is my house. When we first got together you couldn’t get a sofa on tick because your credit rating was so bad. I’ve always paid my way and sometimes yours. Even when Danny was a baby, I worked; I’ve sold stuff, I’ve taught…I don’t know how you dare accuse me of being unworldly. We’ve always got by.’

David nodded and rested his fingertips together as if passing sentence. ‘You see, that’s just it, isn’t it? Scraped through, managed, got by.’ He smiled indulgently, as if these were the worst words in the world. ‘The thing is, Cass, I don’t want to scrape by any more. It’s time to move on, but I don’t want you to feel bitter or unhappy about the past, pet. We’ve had a great time.’

‘Pet? A great time?’ she yelled. ‘We’re talking about a marriage here, David, not a day trip to a bloody theme park. Would you like to tell me what you came round for – aside from letting me know that everything is my fault – if you don’t want to see Danny?’

‘There’s no need to talk to me like that.’ David looked hurt. ‘And I’d be grateful if you kept your voice down. We don’t want to wake him up, do we? I’ve been to see my solicitor today.’

Cass’s eyes narrowed; she could sense a trap.

‘The thing is –’ he said quickly, before she could interrupt the flow – ‘I’ve got a lot of responsibilities and outgoings with the new business. I mean, we’re doing well – but…’ David hesitated. ‘It’s not been an easy year for the firm, one way and another, and I was wondering…well, you’ve got this house…’ He looked around thoughtfully, while Cass tried to work out exactly where the conversation was leading.

‘Your point being?’ she said.

‘Well, for one thing, I’ve come to discuss the idea of maintenance for Danny. I was thinking that maybe we could settle with a one-off payment rather than all this monthly malarkey. I was thinking something in the region of…what shall we say?’

Cass waited with bated breath.

‘I mean, presumably you will remarry at some time.’

‘David, you’ve been gone three months.’

‘Exactly. That’s what I’m saying – things move on, times change. How would you feel about, say, five thousand pounds?’ he said cheerily.

Cass stared at him, not quite able to believe what she was hearing. ‘What?’

‘Well, it seems fair. I mean, if we want to go with the letter of the law, legally I’d probably be entitled to half your house if I wanted to push it. But that would be mean, wouldn’t it?’

Mean? Cass didn’t know what to say, or where to begin, or at least she didn’t trust herself to open her mouth. What a complete and utter bastard.

‘So what do you think?’ he pressed.

‘I think that you ought to leave.’

He smiled. ‘So you’ll consider my offer then?’

‘I had Abby’s parents round over the weekend,’ countered Cass, her tone icy cold.

David paled. ‘Ah, right. And how are they?’

‘What do you mean, How are they? How do you think they are, David? They’re looking for someone to blame for why you ran off with their precious little girl.’

Cass paused, waiting for David to suggest that that, too, was her fault, but fortunately he just nodded. ‘You know, it’s sad really. They simply can’t see that the way they’ve treated her is at least half the problem. She is so, so complex – so fragile. It’s not easy. They’re not easy people to get on with, apparently. Abby has been telling me how they –’

‘David,’ Cass snapped, ‘they are perfectly reasonable people who are worried to death about their eighteen-year-old daughter running off with a man old enough to be her father.’

David flinched as if she had punched him. ‘Hardly old enough to be her father, Cass. Come on now, you have to admit that that’s a bit of an exaggeration.’ He ran a hand back over his thinning blond hair – which, it struck Cass, was several shades lighter than when he had left.

‘David. You’re forty-four –’

‘Forty-three, actually.’

‘All right forty-three, but you’ll be forty-four next month and, whichever way you add it up, surely to God you can see that Abby’s parents are worried sick about what’s happened – and they have every reason to be. As far as they were concerned, come October their precious little girl was off to De Monteford to do something meaningful in social sciences, and now here she is shacked up with some ageing Lothario in a love nest above the laundrette.’

David glared at her, his face fire-engine red. ‘You can be so bloody cruel at times.’

‘You mean when I’m not being pessimistic or a terrible burden?’

‘This is no joke, Cass,’ he snapped.

She got to her feet. ‘I wasn’t being funny. I think you should leave now.’

Reluctantly, David got to his feet. ‘So what do you think of my offer?’ he asked again.

‘I took it in the spirit in which it was made, David,’ she said, guiding him towards the front door.

‘Meaning what, exactly?’ he asked.

‘That I think you’re taking the piss. I’m going to see my solicitor and, in the meantime, I am seriously considering accepting a managerial position I’ve just been offered in Brighton.’

David’s jaw dropped. ‘What?’

‘You heard me.’ If she was going to be accused of being a cow, Cass decided, she might as well enjoy a few of the perks. She also didn’t bother pointing out that she was only going for the summer, nor that she would be managing Barney.

It totally wrong-footed David. ‘I hadn’t thought – I’m not sure how I feel about that. I mean, where does that leave us?’

‘Us?’ Cass said incredulously. ‘What the hell do you mean, us?’

‘What about Danny?’ he blustered.

It was all Cass could do not to punch him. ‘Don’t talk to me about Danny. You’re the one who planned your visit so that he was asleep when you got here.’

And then there had been Abby’s parents, who had been another complete nightmare. They couldn’t see beyond the fact that it had been Cass who had offered Abby the job after she had replied to an ad in the corner-shop window. Everything that had happened from then on, it seemed, had been everybody else’s fault except Abby’s.

‘She’s very naïve and young for her age. We thought it would be safe, letting her work here, didn’t we, Moira? We’re very upset about how things have turned out,’ said Abby’s father. It didn’t seem to occur to either of them that Cass might be hurt or upset too, or that their daughter might have had any part in seducing, flirting with, or encouraging David. Oh no, that it seemed was absolutely impossible.

‘We thought of her as our little girl,’ said her mum, tearfully. ‘You know, she hasn’t rung or been round or anything since…well, you know.’ They were talking about Abby in variations of the past tense, as if running off with David was the same as dying.

‘She was just a baby, really,’ agreed her father.

Cass nodded. Their little girl, their baby, who turned up to clean house in a pink lycra crop top with Sex Kitten in silver sequins across the front, no bra, breasts so pert they would have taken an eye out of the unwary, and a denim micro skirt that, combined with the top, was every dirty old lecher’s dream ticket. Abby may well have been young, but Cass had a horrible feeling that she had known exactly what she was doing when she sashayed across the sitting-room floor pushing the Hoover and plumping cushions. Certainly she had been just what David’s mid-life crisis needed.

3

Cass, holding her breath, standing up on tip-toe and reaching as far as she was able, struggled to tease a big holiday-sized suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe with the very, very tips of her fingers, watched by a wide-eyed and increasingly anxious Danny.

‘Are we going on holiday?’ Danny asked in a nervous little voice.

‘No.’

‘Is it for my school trip?’

‘Nope.’

Cass was trying to avoid going downstairs for a chair or to get the stepladder. She’d already sorted out a couple of portfolios, her art box and two small cases for Danny and…and…Cass took a deep breath, straining to stretch up that last half an inch. She was so close, so-very-very-close.

‘Am I going to stay at Granny’s for a very long time?’ Danny whispered.

‘No, sweetheart. God – bloody thing,’ Cass groaned, blowing hard. One more big stretch and…and she still couldn’t reach.

‘Are you going to take all my toys away and give them to poor children because I’ve been so naughty?’

Very slowly Cass turned to look at him and resolved to have a strong word with her mother. Danny was sitting on the end of the bed. He was dressed in a navy blue T-shirt, oatmeal-coloured shorts, blue socks and sandals, his big brown eyes watching her every move – he looked so cute that Cass could have scooped him up and eaten him.

‘No, sweetheart, no. I’m not going to do that and neither is anyone else, and I can’t imagine you’re ever going to be that naughty, ever. Take it from me, Granny Annie can be pretty bad herself, and no one ever threatened to take her toys away.’

Danny nodded solemnly.

‘The thing is,’ said Cass, reaching up again for the case, trying to fool herself that the first couple of attempts were just a warm-up and this time she would get it, no sweat. ‘You know that Mummy’s been looking for a job? Well, she’s got one and it’s going to be really good fun. We’re going to go and live by the seaside. Just you and me – and God, I really wish I was two inches taller.’

Danny considered the implications for a few seconds. ‘The seaside?’

Cass nodded. ‘Uhuh.’

‘With a beach and stuff?’

She nodded again. ‘With a beach and funfair and a swimming pool and ice cream and lots of places to go, and stuff –’

‘Are you still going to paint?’

Cass nodded.

‘And do books and cards and things?’

Cass wasn’t sure how much more nodding she could manage. ‘Yes, just like now, but I’m going to work in a gallery too, and do all sorts of other stuff.’

‘Are you still going to work at my school?’

‘Yes. We’re only going for the summer, for the holidays.’

Danny put his head on one side for a few seconds, and then said, ‘What about Daddy? Is Daddy coming too? How will he know where we live? He won’t be able to find us. And what about Milo and Bob?’ The words tumbled out in a breathless rush.

Cass gave up on the suitcase and turned her attention to Danny. ‘It’s all right. We’re only going for a little while. Jake is going to look after Bob and we’ll take Milo with us. And we’ll tell Daddy exactly where we are. OK? We’re going to live in a flat in Brighton and Mummy’s going to work for a man called Barney, and he’s got a cat and a dog too…’ Cass hesitated, it was probably best not to suggest that Barney was a nice man.

Danny’s eyes widened in horror. ‘Oh no. Barney’s not your new boyfriend, is he?’

Six, and he should be working for the local police force. ‘No, honey, he’s not my boyfriend. He’s an old friend of Jake’s.’ Cass paused; childcare was going to be a nightmare. Danny, swinging his legs, studied her thoughtfully.

The job, as explained by Barney over a lot of frothy coffee, a glass too much of house red and a crash course in Italian profanity, was a complex, fast-moving combination of PA, nanny, shopkeeper and head wrangler for Barney’s various family, art and business interests. These would include his pets, mother and various ex-wives, children, stepchildren, girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, creditors, artists, and such domestic help as he could lay his hands on, explained Barney conversationally, topping up Cass’s glass with the brandy that the waiter had left on their table.

To be fair, although Barney swore blind he didn’t like children, he seemed more than willing to accommodate Danny. And Cass, over dessert, had finally agreed to take the job for the summer holidays. Although on reflection maybe it was the booze talking.

‘Daisy’s going to be here for most of the summer and I thought we could hire an au pair – or at least you can. I’ll pay her, you just have to pick someone who won’t steal the teaspoons and hide bread in the airing cupboard,’ Barney had said, dipping a little crispy almond biscuit into his coffee so that the froth crept up it like a rising tide. ‘She can clean house and mind Danny and feed the animals. Actually, I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it earlier. It’ll be perfect. I can teach her to play backgammon and she will think I’m wounded and complex, and moon around after me with her hairy armpits, wearing strange clothes in peculiar foreign ways. They like a father figure, in my experience. I will try to be strong for both of us. It will be absolutely wonderful,’ added Barney gleefully. ‘When did you say you can start?’

‘As soon as the school holidays begin, although maybe we need to talk about living arrangements. For a start, I barely know you. You’re grumpy, rude and untidy – not to mention an alcoholic.’

‘You just said you didn’t know me.’ Barney looked wounded. ‘Jake never told me how rude you were.’ He paused. ‘Presumably you’re worried about your virtue?’

Cass didn’t think that deserved an answer.

Barney sighed. ‘You’ve seen for yourself how big the flat is. There are two decent-sized rooms and a little bathroom at the back – all yours, own key, everything. You’ll have to share the rest, but I’m sure Jake will give me a reference. And don’t worry, you’re not my type at all – my woman of choice is a neurotic bunny boiler who is stalking her therapist.’ He looked sadly down at the remains of his dessert. ‘God, I miss that woman.’

‘Own rooms? Own key?’

Barney nodded and extended his hand across the wreckage of supper. ‘So, it’s a deal then?’ he said, closing his great paw over hers and shaking it firmly before waving the waiter over. ‘Let’s have some more booze, shall we? How’s your tiramisu?’

Now, back at home in the spare bedroom, Cass stared down at her son; she must have been nuts to agree. But then again, maybe it was just the kind of thing that they both needed, a summer by the sea.

Easy. Or at least that was how it had seemed when Barney explained it to her.

She looked up at the wardrobe. It was no good, she would have to go and get a chair.

‘Cass?’ Jake’s voice made her jump. ‘Are you there?’

‘We’re upstairs,’ she called back. ‘Packing.’ Or at least they would be if she ever got the bloody case down. Jake was tall. ‘Come on up,’ she continued cheerily. ‘We’re in the spare room.’

Danny still looked anxious. She stroked sunshine yellow baby-boy hair back off his face. ‘It’s OK,’ she said softly. ‘Daddy will know exactly where we are going. And you can ring him every day if you want to. Maybe we can arrange for you to stay with him for part of the summer holidays. It’s going to be all right. Promise. Cross my heart –’ Was that for Danny’s benefit or hers?

Danny’s solemn expression didn’t alter. ‘Yes, but what about Jake?’ he whispered as their neighbour lumbered noisily up the stairs. ‘Who’s going to look after Jake if we’re not here?’

Good question. More to the point, who was going to look after Cass if Jake wasn’t there to make tea, pick up the pieces and say it would be all right even if it quite obviously wasn’t true? He was like a father, big brother and fairy godmother all mixed into one.

Before she could think of a good answer, Jake sprung across the threshold, clutching a folded newspaper. ‘Have you seen this?’ he said, thrusting it under her nose. The headline read, ‘Local businessman sought for questioning in multimillionpound accounting scam.’

Cass looked up at Barney. ‘Don’t tell me.’

He nodded. ‘’Fraid so – Mr Peaches,’ and then began to read: ‘“Local businessman, James Devlin, forty-one, is wanted for questioning in connection with the disappearance of company funds believed to be worth in excess of two million pounds from Devlin Holdings Ltd of Little Lamport, near Ely. Mr Devlin, a prominent and popular local figure, vanished last week after an emergency meeting was convened to discuss cash-flow problems and discrepancies in the accounts revealed during a routine audit. A company spokesman told our reporter yesterday that company representatives were keen to speak to Mr Devlin as soon as possible.”’

Jake looked up to see if Cass was still listening.

‘There’s a dreadful photo. Looks as if it was taken when he was at school,’ he said, before reading on: ‘“At their home, Mrs Margaret Devlin was unavailable for comment, but in a statement made through her family solicitor said she was anxious for her husband’s safety and mental wellbeing. He has been under a lot of pressure over the last few months, Mrs Devlin added, and said she had no doubt her husband would be happy to cast some light on the company’s present financial position as soon as he returned, and on a personal note added that she hoped that he would be home soon as his family missed him dreadfully.”’

Cass held up her hands in surrender. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Jake. It’s got nothing to do with me.’

‘I just thought you might be interested, that’s all. I mean, you were one of the last people to see him alive.’

Cass stared at him. ‘What do you mean, see him alive? As far as I’m concerned, he is still alive; he was off to have an adventure in Rome. He gave me a mint humbug, for God’s sake, not his last will and testament.’

‘Well, this comment by his wife suggests…you know…’ After checking that Danny wasn’t looking, Jake drew a finger ominously across his throat. He waved the paper at her again. ‘Anyway, I thought you might be interested. Here –’

Cass peered at it. Jake was right about the photograph. It looked like it had been blown up from some kind of eighties team photo and, other than the mop of blond hair, it looked nothing like the man she had met on the train.

‘Well, like I said, I’m not interested. When I saw him he was very chirpy, no hint of…you know.’ She expertly mimicked Jake’s tone and gesture as she returned the paper to him.

‘Have you talked to anyone about seeing him, besides the police?’ asked Jake. ‘The press or anything?’

‘No. Why on earth should I?’

‘I just wondered. Only there’s a car been sitting at the end of the lane for most of the day. I noticed it parking up when you came home. I wouldn’t swear to it, but I think the guy inside has got some sort of camera or maybe binoculars. I wondered if it was a reporter, the paparazzi.’

Cass laughed. ‘Oh, stop it. You’re being paranoid.’

Jake shrugged. ‘Maybe, but I was just thinking, what would happen if the national press got hold of your connection with the case?’

‘Got hold of what connection? I haven’t got a connection. I saw him on the train – it’s hardly headline news, is it? “Woman sees man on train.”’

‘Maybe you’re right. But you don’t know what his wife might have said about you.’

Cass groaned. ‘Please, Jake, stop, will you,’ and then added casually, ‘Is there any chance you could get that case down for me?’

Jake looked heavenwards. ‘Work, work, work, what on earth are you going to do without me?’

At which point Danny, still sitting on the end of the bed, sniffed miserably.

At the end of the lane where Cass and Jake lived, Mr Marshall had logged Jake’s arrival and taken a couple of photos with the long lens on his new digital camera.

A few miles away in Little Lamport a stream of police officers, as industrious and diligent as worker ants, were busy carrying box after box of James Devlin’s papers and personal effects out from the office he had had built above the double garage and stacking them neatly under the carport. Alongside the papers and folders were computers, screens, boxes of CDS, DVDs, files, folders, and God knows what else, all neatly sealed in evidence bags which were being carefully logged and doublechecked before being packed into an unmarked navy blue Transit van.

Margaret Devlin watched their progress from the sitting-room window and bit her lip, holding back a great torrent of fury.

Detective Inspector Turner, the officer in charge of the investigation, who was sitting opposite her drinking tea and eating his way through a packet of Garibaldis, took it for grief, which was most probably a good thing. Margaret glanced at him. He was a large affable man with wavy grey hair and a rather natty moustache that made him look distinguished and added a slightly military air.

‘We really appreciate your co-operation, Mrs Devlin. My men and I will try and ensure there is as little disruption to your day-to-day routine as possible. I realise that life can’t be very easy for you at the moment.’

He could say that again; her solicitor had just rung to tell Margaret that an application had been made by the shareholders to freeze all James’s assets. Why couldn’t the bastard have had the decency to die quietly in his bed and leave her in peace? She really hoped Gordie Mann’s weaselly friend tracked James down. Life would be so much simpler if James was dead – a heart attack or something quick and terminal – but obviously only if he hadn’t been using the company funds as his own personal current account. Bastard. Outside in the run, Snoops, pressed tight up against the wire, threw back his head and howled miserably.

‘I’m afraid I need to ask you a few more questions.’ DI Turner’s voice focused her attention.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I was miles away.’ If only.

He waved her apology away. ‘It’s perfectly understandable. Would you prefer to wait until your solicitor is present?’

Margaret shook her head. ‘No, of course not, Inspector. I’ve got nothing to hide. Ask away.’ She smiled at the WPC who was perched on the edge of the sofa, taking notes. The girl really didn’t make the best of herself, a bit of eye makeup and a decent bra really wouldn’t go amiss; what did they teach them at police training college?

The Detective Inspector took a deep breath as if he was about to launch into a big speech, but at that moment the au pair appeared at the sitting-room door, anxiously wringing her paws as she looked from one face to the other, finally settling on Margaret with those big brown watery eyes of hers.

‘Missis Devlin?’ The au pair smiled wanly at her. Margaret glared right back. This, after being told on numerous occasions that she wasn’t to interrupt when Margaret had guests, even if the guests were in this case the police.

‘Yes?’ said Margaret, feigning interest; she still wasn’t altogether sure what the girl’s name was, despite her having been with them six months. It was something Eastern European, maybe Romania, which sounded like a cross between a sneeze and a hacking cough, and refused point-blank to stay in her head, even after she had written it down phonetically on a whole pile of post-it notes and stuck them at various key points around the house.

‘What is it, dear?’ she added, mostly for DI Turner’s benefit. ‘Only, as I’m sure you can see, I am a little busy at the moment.’

The girl smiled nervously. ‘Sorry to disturb you, but this eeeez important.’

Margaret sniffed; that remained to be seen. Probably another defrosting, how-many-minutes-to-let-it-stand-between-microwaving emergency. She was tempted to suggest whatever-her-name-was went back into the kitchen and read the bloody packet, but held fire. The girl took this to be a green light.

‘This won’t take long, I just want to tell you that I have to leave now.’ Margaret had to pick her way through the words, the girl’s accent was as thick as a hand-knitted vest.

Margaret smiled indulgently at DI Turner and then back at what’s-her-name. ‘No, dear, not yet. It’s barely three o’clock,’ she began, her eyes narrowing. ‘It’s not time for you to finish work yet. You finish later.’ She tapped her watch for added emphasis. ‘Later. Six o’clock.’

But the girl was insistent. ‘No,’ she said emphatically, shaking her head. ‘No, I hef to go now.’

‘No, you don’t. You leave off at six, after you’ve cooked the children’s supper. Then it will be time for you to go to your language class.’ Margaret talked slowly, her smile stretched as tight as a drumskin as she enunciated every last word. God, the girl was such a bloody moron. ‘I’ll tell you what, why don’t we talk about this later. I’m rather busy at the –’

But the girl would not be stopped. ‘No, no, no, you not make of me any understanding. I have to go. Really. I do.’ She mimed walking away, using two pale, podgy fingers to represent those dumpylard white legs of hers. ‘Now.’

‘Oh, I understand perfectly, dear,’ said Margaret, keeping her tone as even as she could manage, while pulling a jolly ‘sorry, what-can-you-do-face’ for DI Turner. ‘But you don’t leave off until six. Six.’ She held up six fingers. ‘Six o’clock.’

The girl frowned. ‘No, not six, I know six. I have to go to my mother’s.’

‘Your mother’s?’ snapped Margaret incredulously. ‘What on earth do you mean, your mother’s? Your mother lives in, in…’ Margaret fished around for the exact location and, coming up empty, settled for, ‘abroad.’

The girl’s eyes lit up. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, that is it. Abroad, yes.’

‘Yes?’ said Margaret grimly, her awareness of DI Turner slipping away as her patience finally began to fail her. ‘What the hell do you mean, yes? Yes what?’

‘Yes, please, I am having to going to my mother’s abroad.’

Margaret’s eyes narrowed. ‘When?’

The girl smiled beatifically ‘Soon. But I have to leave here tonight. Now.’

‘Excuse me for one moment,’ said Margaret brightly to DI Turner as she got to her feet. ‘I’m not sure precisely what is going on here.’ And then to the girl, in a cooler tone: ‘Perhaps we should discuss this later, my dear, or at least go into the kitchen to finish our conversation. The Detective Inspector really doesn’t want to hear all our domestic –’

But the girl shook her head. ‘No, no. I have not got to talk. I have no time. I have to go now. I have to pack.’ It sounded like i-heftogonow-I heftopec.’

‘No, you don’t,’ Margaret growled. ‘We need to talk about this.’

The girl pulled herself upright, mouth narrowing down to an angry little slit. ‘It is in my contract.’

Margaret stiffened. ‘I’m sorry? What did you say?’

The girl pulled a great, dog-eared many-folded wedge of paper out from her overall pocket. ‘Page four, it is in my contract, it says my mother’s health it is not good. She is a sick woman.’

She waved the paper under Margaret’s nose and then, for good measure, under DI Turner’s. ‘It says here that I am able go to assist her any time if she ring me.’

‘And she rang you?’ asked Margaret icily.

The girl nodded. ‘Oh, yes. She ring me.’

‘When?’ snapped Margaret. ‘When did she ring you?’

‘A little while ago, maybe a few minutes, on my mobile. She say I have to go home. Excuse me, I have to go and pack now. I’m sorry.’

You will be, thought Margaret murderously.

The girl turned on her heel and made for the door at around the same time that DI Turner continued, ‘As I was about to say, Mrs Devlin, I would appreciate if you could answer one or two small points. Although I can see that this may not be the moment. Perhaps you would like me to come back at a mutually convenient time?’

Margaret painted on a smile and waved the words away. ‘No, not at all. It’s fine, Inspector. I’m sure I can sort er…’ the girl’s name refused to come ‘…sort things out when you’ve gone. She has always been a little volatile, and her command of English, well, you know.’ Margaret held up her hands to encompass all manner of craziness and misunderstanding. The Inspector smiled and nodded encouragingly, so Margaret carried on. ‘James drew up her contract of employment. I really had no idea about the sick mother clause,’ she said with false heartiness. ‘Laughable, really. But it’s so like him. Ah well. Now, what did you want to know?’

The Inspector seemed delighted that she had brought James up voluntarily. ‘Did your husband always deal with your domestic arrangements? You know, the hiring and firing of staff and that sort of thing?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact, he did,’ agreed Margaret; why not blame James for her dilemma? She had completely forgotten about the stupid girl’s sick bloody mother. Fancy bringing it up now, at a time like this when it was quite obvious Margaret needed all the help she could get. Selfish little cow. Margaret felt a great wave of self-pity settling over her. What on earth was she going to do now? Who was going to clean and cook for the children? Good Lord, it was dreadful, unthinkable. Mrs Hill, her daily, would never be able to manage it all on her own.

Inspector Turner leaned forward. ‘Are you all right, Mrs Devlin? Can I get you something? A glass of water?’

She pulled out a lacy hankie and sniffed back the tears. ‘No, thank you. It’s very kind, but I’ll be fine, Inspector. James usually interviewed the girls we employed. In fact this is the first au pair I have ever actually chosen myself. James never really asked the right questions, if you follow me; he didn’t seem to realise how important it was that they could cook or clean or look after the children adequately.’ She left the implication hanging in the air between them.

DI Turner smoothed his moustache and then looked her up and down; it was a most provocative glance. Margaret felt herself blushing.

‘So what do you think he chose them for, if not for their domestic skills?’ the Inspector asked in a low voice.

Coyly Margaret looked down at the Oriental rug and noticed rather sourly that there were still biscuit crumbs on it from yesterday. ‘I’m sure you can imagine that life with James hasn’t always been easy. You must be aware of my husband’s reputation, Inspector,’ she said in a low voice.

DI Turner nodded. ‘I am. But, to be honest, having met you, Mrs Devlin, I’m surprised.’

‘Surprised?’

‘Absolutely. I’m surprised that he bothered, not with a good-looking woman like you waiting at home.’

At least the WPC had the good grace to look away. Margaret’s colour deepened to a warm, flattering pink.

Outside, the worker ants continued to empty James’s office, and from upstairs somewhere came the throbbing bass beat of a pop song. Margaret couldn’t work out whether it was coming from one of the children’s rooms or the au pair’s. Whoever it was, she would make sure somebody paid for it later.

By the time DI Turner finally got to the end of his questions, Margaret had some idea of exactly how bad things were. James had managed to head off into the sunset with around two million pounds, give or take a bob or two; not to mention various assets – property, shares, God knows what – which he had liquidated. DI Turner didn’t mention Gordie Mann’s investment, or the whereabouts of James’s diary or address books. Perhaps they didn’t know about them.

It seemed that even their house had been mortgaged more times than was credible. In a nutshell, Margaret Devlin had nothing. In fact, given the state of the mortgage situation, probably considerably less than nothing.

Once he had finished speaking, Margaret stared at DI Turner for a very long time. Finally he looked down at his notes.

‘And you say you have no current photos of your husband?’

Margaret shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not. James liked to take photos, but he was practically phobic about being in them.’

DI Turner nodded thoughtfully. ‘It’s amazing. It appears that your husband has vanished, which, in an age of CCTV and modern technology, is close to a miracle. And have you any idea as to the whereabouts of his diary?’ Margaret shook her head. It was true; she had no idea where it was now – the weaselly Mr Marshall could have taken it anywhere; same with James’s address books.

DI Turner paused, looking out into the middle distance. ‘I have to ask you, Mrs Devlin, if you have any idea where your husband might have gone?’ he said, after what seemed like an eternity.

Margaret shook her head. After the revelations about the state of her finances, she didn’t know how to speak, couldn’t find the words to say exactly what it was she felt. But one thing was certain: any ideas she might have about James Devlin’s whereabouts weren’t going to be shared with the police – at least not until she had had her five-penn’orth. Maybe she would ring Gordie and see if he and his man had come up with anything.

If she could find him, James Devlin would rue the day he’d done this to her. She would make him pay in ways he had never ever dreamed of; he would be glad to give himself up to the police and possibly even Gordie by the time she had done with him.

‘I’m afraid not, Inspector,’ Margaret said, letting the words catch in her throat to emphasise her regret. ‘Would you like some more tea, or would you prefer something a little stronger? To be perfectly honest, I think I could use a drop of brandy myself.’

DI Turner barely hesitated. ‘I don’t mind if I do,’ he said, ignoring the look from the WPC on the sofa.

‘Your husband, Mr David Hammond, has agreed, under the terms of his credit agreement with our company, to surrender the car in lieu of any further payments.’ The repo man, who had been reading his little speech from a laminated prompt card, paused and tried out a smile. Cass wondered if perhaps it was suggested in the script. ‘Do you understand?’ he said. He had a nasty nasal twang.

Cass nodded. What was there not to understand?

‘And then, obviously, once we’ve gone through all the formalities I’ll write you out a receipt.’

‘Oh well, that will really help,’ said Cass grimly. The formalities presumably meant taking her car keys away.

He smiled at her again. ‘You know, there’s absolutely no need to be upset. You really don’t have to worry. I mean, people do get upset, but this kind of thing happens all the time.’

‘Not to me, it doesn’t,’ said Cass through gritted teeth. First thing she’d heard about her car going was a cheery note from the finance company arranging a date and a time.

‘So let’s see, where have we got to? Oh yes, here we are,’ he said, running a finger down the laminated card. ‘Do you have the documentation, or know where it can be located?’ he read. The guy was a real genius. ‘The log book –’

The car in question, a bright shiny black Vauxhall Corsa that Cass adored, had been a birthday present from David. A present, a nasty little voice in her head reminded her, not something to be surrendered in lieu of bloody payments.

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