‘Why didn’t you tell me it was the same lock?’ I remonstrated, grinning at her. ‘I’ve still got the key you gave me all that time ago.’
Julia’s face brightened at once. I went back into the house, fetched the key to Julia’s flat, complete with the label on which I had written her name, and brought it back to her.
She took it from me, smiling broadly. She really was a good recoverer.
‘God, I’m so relieved, Rose,’ she said. ‘I know it’s daft, but if I hadn’t been able to move in today I would have been really disappointed.’
‘It’s not daft,’ I told her. ‘This is a big step forwards, and you want to be in your own place again — just as long as you are sure you’re going to be all right.’
‘Rose, stop fussing, you sound like my bloody mother.’ Julia’s smile stretched even more broadly as she spoke.
‘OK, OK, come on then, let’s get on the road,’ I said. I wanted to stay long enough with Julia in London to be sure that she was settled and at ease, and I had promised to be back in Bristol that night for a dinner with Robin and the UK chairman of AKEKO. The pair of them had become pretty thick over recent weeks and I was becoming more and more sure that Robin would pull off his scheme, and, in spite of my lack of enthusiasm I was not prepared to do or say anything that might upset his plans or rock our recovered, if slightly fragile, relationship. I felt as if I had coped with enough trouble and emotional distress to last me several lifetimes. I realised I was turning into something of an ostrich again, but it was all about survival really. And I didn’t know how else to survive.
I had offered to move in with Julia for a few days, but she had been quite adamant, the independent old bat, that she wanted to be on her own from the start.
Her excitement bubbled over all the way up the M4.
‘I just can’t wait to see what Kendal’s done with the place,’ she enthused, her eyes shining in eager anticipation. It was a long time since I had seen her in such fine form.
‘There’s no need to make it quite so obvious how pleased you are to be getting shot of me,’ I said, as we turned right off the Cromwell Road at Earl’s Court and headed down to the Embankment.
She giggled delightedly. ‘I thought it was the other way round,’ she responded.
‘Never,’ I told her. Pathetic really, but I was feeling a bit emotional and I couldn’t keep the banter up.
She was silent for the rest of the journey to Arlington Towers, and I hoped that her euphoria would not evaporate when she was faced with the reality of returning to the place where she nearly died. But she looked positive enough as she pumped her personal code into the key pad by the big glass front doors which led into the lobby — Arlington was one of these modern fully automated blocks of luxury flats without on-site porterage.
‘At least I can remember the number, I can’t be entirely brain dead,’ she quipped. I winced, but Julia merely gave me a playful push. She really seemed to be very nearly her old self and I couldn’t get over it.
We took the lift to the fourth floor and walked along to Julia’s flat. She took the key I had given her out of her bag and inserted it in the lock.
It wouldn’t turn.
She removed the key and stared at it for a moment or two, looking puzzled. I saw her touch her head, as she had done when we had left my Clifton house, as if wondering if everything inside were functioning correctly.
‘Here, let me have a go,’ I said.
She passed me the key. I put it in the lock. It wouldn’t turn. I wiggled and twisted it, pushed the door forwards, pulled it backwards. The key still would not turn. I removed it and stared at it in the palm of my hand, just as Julia had done.
My first thought was that Julia had somehow got in a muddle or that Kendal had changed the lock for some reason after all, and she had forgotten.
‘It’s the wrong key, isn’t it?’ said Julia in a small voice.
I nodded. ‘There must be an explanation...’ I began.
‘And I dread to think what it is,’ responded Julia, continuing to speak very quietly.
I glanced at her. All the animation had gone from her. She looked pale and ill again. But I suddenly realised that her brain, in spite of the battering it had received not so very long ago, was working more quickly than mine.
‘Oh my God,’ I said. My legs felt like jelly, and if I had not leaned against the wall for support I think I would have collapsed.
Julia took charge then. She must have been in better shape than I had realised. I had been supposed to be looking after her. Suddenly it turned out to be the other way around.
‘We need a place to sit and think this through,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to chase around frantically for a key, I’ll sort that out with Kendal in the morning. Let’s check into that big new hotel just across the river.’
Her brain was definitely motoring again. My own had temporarily shut down. I allowed myself to be led out on to the street. I climbed into my car, started the motor, and drove like a zombie, following Julia’s instructions, across Lambeth Bridge and left along the South Bank to the hotel she had in mind which had taken over the old County Hall building. Julia did all the checking in and ordered coffee for both of us and a large brandy for me — she was still not allowed to drink — as soon as we got into our room.
We sat at a window overlooking the river. I have always loved the Thames. You could see Westminster Bridge and Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament beyond. For once I did not notice the splendour of it. The offending key was in the pocket of my jeans and I half-imagined I could feel it burning my thigh. I took it out and put it on the table before us.
‘Perhaps it just doesn’t work properly,’ I said.
‘Rose, it’s a Banham, you can’t get them cut anywhere except by Banham, they always work,’ said Julia.
I knew she was right. But still clutching at straws, I suppose, I voiced what had been my first thought.
‘Well, perhaps the lock has been changed after all, and nobody told you, or, well, I don’t want to upset you, but maybe you forgot...’
Julia shook her head, unoffended. ‘No,’ she said simply. ‘Kendal told me he’d lent a key to the builders and all manner of people, right up until yesterday, and suggested I might like to get the lock changed straight away after I’d moved in, just in case.’
My heart felt like lead.
Julia looked paler than ever. I watched her take two pain killers from the bottle she kept in her bag and swallow them quickly.
‘It’s the wrong key, Rose, it has to be,’ she said. ‘It cannot be the one I gave you. That’s the only solution.’
‘But the label...’ I stammered.
‘Somebody must have swapped it, taken my key off the hook and replaced it with this one.’
My leaden heart sank into my boots.
‘Robin,’ I whispered through dry lips. ‘It could only be Robin.’
I wanted to go over to the big double bed, climb under the covers and hide myself away from the world. I felt as if my head belonged to somebody else, somebody I didn’t know. I battled to clear my thoughts.
‘But he couldn’t have known you had that letter or even that you had been to see Jeremy Cole,’ I said suddenly. ‘He was on his way to Ireland. And he arrived on schedule. Todd Mallett checked it out.’
I could see that Julia was making a tremendous effort to concentrate. She sat holding her chin in both hands, her brow furrowed.
‘He went on the night train, didn’t he — allegedly?’ she asked, and she put special emphasis on the word ‘allegedly’.
I nodded. Afraid all over again.
‘What if he came back to your house, because he’d forgotten something, or missed the train, what if he was in the house somewhere and overheard our conversation when I told you on the phone about the letter?’