‘Is Nadiuska ready to start?’
Cleo’s clear, bright eyes engaged with his for just a fraction longer than was necessary for the question. Smiling eyes. Incredibly warm eyes. ‘She’s just nipped out for a sandwich. Be starting in about ten minutes.’
Grace felt a dull ache in his stomach, remembering they hadn’t had anything to eat all morning. It was twenty past two. ‘I’d love a cup of tea. Do you have any biscuits?’
Pulling a tin out from under her desk, she prised off the lid. ‘Digestives. Kit-Kats. Marshmallows? Dark or plain chocolate Leibniz? Fig rolls?’ She offered the tin to him and Branson, who shook his head. ‘What kind of tea? English breakfast, Earl Grey, Darjeeling, China, camomile, peppermint, green leaf?’
He grinned. ‘I always forget. It’s a proper little Starbucks you run here.’
But it elicited no hint of a smile from Glenn Branson, who was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sunk back into depression suddenly. Cleo blew Grace a silent kiss. He took out a Kit-Kat and tore off the wrapper.
Finally, to Grace’s relief, Branson said suddenly, ‘I’ll go and get suited.’
He went out of the room and they were alone together. Cleo shut the door, threw her arms around Roy Grace and kissed him deeply. For a long time.
When their lips parted, still holding him tightly, she asked, ‘So how are you?’
‘I missed you,’ he said.
‘Did you?’
‘Yes.’
‘How much?’
He held out his hands, about two feet apart.
Feigning indignation, she said, ‘Is that all?’
‘Did you miss me?’
‘I missed you, a lot. A lot, a lot.’
‘Good! How was the course?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘Try me?’ He kissed her again.
‘Tell you over dinner tonight.’
He loved that. Loved the way she took the initiative. Loved the impression she gave that she needed him.
He had never felt that with a woman before. Ever. He’d been married to Sandy for so many years, and they had loved each other deeply, but he’d never felt that she needed him. Not like this.
There was just one problem. He’d planned to create dinner at home tonight. Well, to buy stuff in from a deli, at any rate – he was useless at cooking. But Glenn Branson had put the kibosh on that. He could hardly have a romantic evening at home with Glenn moping around, blubbing his eyes out every ten seconds. But there was no way he could tell his friend to get lost for the night.
‘Where would you like to go?’ he said.
‘Bed. With a Chinese takeaway. Sound like a plan?’
‘A very good plan. But it will have to be at your place.’
‘So? You have a problem with that?’
‘No. Just a problem with my place. Tell you later.’
She kissed him again. ‘Don’t go away.’ She went out of the room and came back moments later, holding a green gown, blue overshoes, a face mask and white latex gloves, which she handed to him. ‘These are all the rage.’
‘I thought we’d save the dressing up for later,’ he said.
‘No, we undress later – or maybe after a week you’ve forgotten?’ She kissed him again. ‘What’s up with your friend Glenn? Looks like a sick puppy.’
‘He is. Domestic situation.’
‘So go and cheer him up.’
‘I’m trying.’
Then his mobile phone rang. Irritated by the distraction, he answered it. ‘Roy Grace.’
It was the family liaison officer, Linda Buckley. ‘Roy,’ she said, ‘I’m at the Hotel du Vin, where I checked Bishop into a room an hour ago. He’s disappeared.’
15
Sophie’s mother was Italian. She had always taught her daughter that food was the best cure for shock. And at this moment, standing at the counter of the Italian deli, unaware of the man in the hoodie and dark glasses watching her from behind the opaque window of the Private Shop across the road, Sophie was clutching her mobile phone to her ear, in deep shock.
She was a creature of habit, but her habits changed with her mood. For several months, day after day, she had taken an Itsu box of sushi back to her office for lunch, but then she had read an article about people getting worms from raw fish. Since then she had been hooked on a mozzarella, tomato and Parma ham ciabatta from this deli. A lot less healthy than sushi, but yummy. She’d had one for lunch almost every day for the past month – maybe even longer. And today, more than ever, she needed the comfort of familiarity.
‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘My darling, what’s happened? Please tell me?’
He was babbling, incoherent. ‘Golf . . . Dead . . . Won’t let me into the house . . . Police. Dead. Oh, Jesus Christ, dead.’
Suddenly the short, bald Italian behind the counter was thrusting the steaming sandwich, wrapped in paper, towards her.
She took it and, still holding her phone to her ear, stepped out into the street.
‘They think I did it. I mean . . . Oh, God. Oh, God.’
‘Darling, can I do something? Do you want me to come down?’
There was a long silence. ‘They were asking me – grilling me,’ Bishop blurted out. ‘They think I did it. They think I killed her. They kept asking me where I was last night.’
‘Well, that’s easy,’ she said. ‘You were with me.’
‘No. Thank you, but that’s not smart. We don’t need to lie.’
‘Lie?’ she replied, startled.
‘Christ,’ he said. ‘I feel so confused.’
‘What do you mean, We don’t need to lie ? Darling?’
A police car was roaring down the street, siren screeching. He said something, but his voice was drowned out. When the car had passed she said, ‘Sorry, I couldn’t hear. What did you say?’
‘I told them the truth. I had dinner with Phil Taylor, my financial adviser, then I went to bed.’ There was a long silence, then she heard him sobbing.
‘Darling, I think you missed something out. What you did after dinner with your financial adviser guy?’
‘No,’ he said, sounding a little surprised.
‘Hello! I know you are in shock. But you came down to my flat. Just after midnight. You spent the night with me – and you shot off about five in the morning, because you had to get your golf kit from your house.’
‘You’re very sweet,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want you to have to start lying.’
She froze in her tracks. A lorry rumbled past, followed by a taxi. ‘Lying? What do you mean? It’s the truth.’
‘Darling, I don’t need to invent an alibi. It’s better to tell the truth.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, suddenly feeling confused. ‘I’m not with you at all. It is the truth. You came over, we slept together, then you went off. Surely that’s the best thing, to tell the truth?’
‘Yes. Absolutely. It is.’
‘So?’
‘So?’ he echoed.
‘So you came to my flat some time after midnight, we made love – pretty wildly – and you left just after five.’
‘Except that I didn’t,’ he said.
‘Didn’t what?’
‘I didn’t come to your flat.’
She lifted the phone away from her ear for a moment, stared at it, then held it clamped to her ear again, wondering for a moment if she was going mad. Or if he was.
‘I – I don’t understand?’
‘I have to go,’ he said.
16
A small card, with a seductive photograph of an attractive-looking Oriental girl, was printed with the words ‘Pre-op transsexual’ and a phone number. Next to it was another card depicting a big-haired woman in leather, brandishing a whip. A stench of urine rose from a damp patch on the floor that Bishop had avoided standing in. It was the first time he had been in a public phone booth in years and this one didn’t exactly make him feel nostalgic. And apart from the smell, it felt like a sauna.