by Jill Mansell
* * *
Linda and Cleo were both with the same agency. They had been friends for years. Since Linda’s idea of lunch was three radishes and a nectarine for dessert, they had arranged to meet at the café on the first floor of Emporio Armani. She was already there, sipping iced mineral water, when Cleo, late as usual, panted up the stairs.
“Look, I’ve bought five shirts.” Linda held open the brown bag to show them off, but there was an air of desperation about her. Cleo looked. All the shirts were white. Linda wasn’t even a shirty person. She’d been panic buying again.
“I know, I know.” Linda sounded defensive. “It’s just that Colin says I’m going to have to pull myself together and stop acting like a selfish child. And I know he’s right,” she added hurriedly. “What with the massive mortgage and all the expense of getting the house right. But every time he gives me a lecture on not frittering my money away, I just come over all desperate, and now Colin’s saying I should hand everything over to him as soon as I get paid. That way, he can make sure I don’t do anything silly with it. Oh, Cleo, he wants to give me an allowance. He says a hundred pounds a week for ‘sundries’ is more than enough for anyone.”
One of the hardest things in life to bear, as far as Cleo was concerned, was having to watch your girlfriends either moving in with or marrying completely unsuitable men. You could know with absolute certainty that it wouldn’t work out, that it would all end in tears, that it was the most disastrous relationship since Tom and Jerry…but could you do anything to stop it happening? No, because they wouldn’t let you.
“But it’s your money,” she protested. “You earn ten times as much as Colin. He’s bullying you, and he has no right to do that! Oh, Linda.” Cleo’s voice softened. “Are you sure he’s the one for you? Do you really want to marry someone who shanghais all your earnings and doles out pocket money?”
She already knew the answer to that. Linda, plucking nervously at the sleeve of her navy T-shirt, was looking more twitchy by the minute. Despite the outward glamour, she was convinced she had all the personality of a wet dishrag. Such chronically low self-esteem kept her superglued to Colin’s side. His bossiness where money was concerned might be a bit of a drawback, but she trusted him implicitly. She believed him when he told her he would never be unfaithful to her. She loved him because he made her feel safe.
He made Cleo feel sick.
I can do something about this, Cleo decided suddenly. It was no good; she simply couldn’t sit back and allow it to happen. And she had an idea how to go about it too. Last week’s trip to the States, where she had appeared in a promotional video for the new Ralph Lauren collection, had introduced her to a new and interesting concept. One of the other models there had told her about it, a company called Checkamate. The idea was both outrageous and perfect.
“OK, don’t say anything. Just listen.” Cleo spoke rapidly, before she could have sensible second thoughts. Then she told an openmouthed Linda how the scheme worked in New York.
“You’re not serious!” Linda looked appalled. So engrossed that she picked a brown sugar lump out of the bowl on the table and popped it into her mouth, she mumbled, “Go on.”
“Well, say a woman wants to know if she really can trust the man in her life. She contacts this Checkamate agency and tells them where he can be found. One of the girls from the agency then turns up on cue—say, at a bar he regularly drinks in after work—and falls into conversation with him. She has a hidden audio recorder going, to play back to the girlfriend later. Anyway, they have a friendly chat and a drink, and if the guy leaves it at that, fine. He’s passed. In the clear.” Cleo’s eyes sparkled. She thought the whole idea was brilliant. “If, on the other hand, he flirts like crazy and ends up asking her out to dinner, he’s proved what a cheating bastard he is. And he can’t even try and wriggle out of it later when his girlfriend confronts him with the evidence, because it’s all there, recorded.”
Linda looked worried. “Seems a bit mean.”
“Mean? Mean?” Cleo howled. “You should hear what some of these apologies for men come out with! Daisy, this girl who told me about it, did some part-time work for the agency. Her very first assignment was with a bloke who’d only been married for six months. He spun her this long, tragic story that he was a widower and ended up inviting her to spend the weekend with him skiing in Aspen.”
Linda winced. “It still sounds like entrapment to me.”
Cleo, who was on a crusade, replied blithely, “Only the men who get caught call it entrapment. Look, it’s quick and it’s cheap—much less expensive than hiring a private detective—and it tells the women all they need to know. You have to admit, it’s ingenious.”
“And you think I should have Colin checked out.” Abruptly, Linda’s enormous, violet eyes filled with tears. She picked up another sugar lump. Her lower lip wobbled like a toddler on a bike.
“Please don’t cry,” Cleo begged, squeezing her thin hand. “I’m just saying, isn’t it better to find out now rather than later? And who knows anyway? He might pass with flying colors! Then you’ll really know you can trust him.”
“I hate you, Cleo Mandeville.” Wiping away the tears, Linda managed a weak smile. “How did you ever get to be so damn cynical anyway? Your mum and dad are the happiest married couple in London, according to Hi! magazine.”
“That’s what’s so depressing,” said Cleo. “Theirs is the only happy marriage I do know. Otherwise, it’s wall-to-wall divorces.”
“I was talking to Cherry Chandler yesterday. I didn’t realize she’d been married four times.” Linda hesitated. “Look, I’ll think about it. Give me a few days. Will you arrange everything if I decide to give it a go?”
“Just leave it to me.” Hiding her triumph, Cleo gave her a reassuring smile.
“Thanks.” Linda bit her lip. “I’m feeling a bit panicky. Do you think another hour of shopping might help?”
“Best therapy in town. Harrods?” suggested Cleo.
“Oh, yes please.”
Chapter 8
The Cameron was a private sports club in Hampstead, owned by Rory Cameron and boasting six squash courts, four outdoor tennis courts, an indoor swimming pool, gym, aerobics studio, and solarium. The bar, situated on the first floor, was separated from the aerobics studio by a glass wall, enabling the drinkers to watch the exercisers being put through their paces. Consequently, the exercisers were always very done up in designer sportswear and matching nail polish. Full makeup was de rigueur.
Jack Mandeville found the dress-to-impress attitude of the majority of the club’s female members laughable, but he and Rory Cameron had been friends for years, and the club was both conveniently close to home and extremely well equipped. It was also somewhere he could relax and not be gawked at by overexcited celebrity spotters. Members of the Cameron weren’t the gawking kind, unless sitting at the bar watching the aerobics classes counted.
Jack preferred to take his drink out onto the sunny terrace overlooking the immaculately maintained grass tennis courts. Here, he could either sit and chat to Benny, his regular squash partner, wrestle desultorily with the Telegraph crossword, or simply relax and enjoy the view.
He had the crossword with him today, Benny having driven off reluctantly to a board meeting in the City. Jack, thankful that he didn’t need to drive anywhere on such a sweltering day, meandered out to his favorite table overlooking court one, stuck his sunglasses on, and folded the paper to the appropriate page.
“Have a cough on a horse,” said a voice close behind him some minutes later. “Fifteen across. It’s hack.”
It was certainly appropriate. Jack watched his fingers tighten around the ballpoint pen as it hovered over the page. When he looked up, he saw Imogen Trent grinning down at him as if their last furious exchange had never taken place.
She looked as if she’d just finished an aerobics class and had actually b
een putting some effort into it. Her long red hair was held back from her face with a green ribbon, though damp tendrils of it clung to her forehead. Pink-cheeked and still slightly out of breath, she looked younger than she had at the party with all her evening makeup intact. A pale-gray hooded top was hanging open over a pink T-shirt and dark-blue shorts. The fact that she wasn’t decked out in the obligatory ultracoordinated sportswear went in her favor. Jack still wished, though, that she hadn’t turned up.
“I saw you at the bar just now.” Imogen puffed a strand of hair out of her eyes and leaned her elbows along the back of the empty chair opposite his. “While I was busting a gut in the torture chamber across the way. I thought I’d better come and warn you I was here. Save you getting a nasty shock.” Not looking at all repentant, she observed the expression on his face and said, “Oh dear, have I ruined your day?”
Jack’s mouth narrowed. “This is a coincidence, I take it?”
“You mean, did I break into Rory Cameron’s office in the dead of night, sneak a look at the membership list, spot your name, and then decide to shell out a huge amount of money to join this particular club?”
It had actually been far simpler; she had overheard Benny at the party, talking about his last squash game with Jack. Still, no need to mention that now.
Imogen’s eyebrows lifted in mock horror. “Please, Mr. Mandeville. If I wanted to really irritate you, I could do it a lot more cheaply than that. Is something the matter?” Her attention was diverted by the direction of his gaze. “What are you staring at? Oh God, is it a wasp?”
Jack was looking at her legs, light brown and slender beneath the dark-blue shorts. He knew he shouldn’t do it, but the compulsion was overwhelming. Leaning across the table, licking his thumb as he did so, he reached out and ran it several inches down her shin. So amazed she didn’t even move away, Imogen watched the fake tan slide off. A bright white track remained in its place.
“Funny,” Jack remarked, “how it comes off skin but not carpet.”
Imogen flushed scarlet. Damn. Abruptly, she pulled out the chair and sat down.
“Look, I’m really sorry about that. I can’t tell you how awful I felt. I wanted to say something, but you were so dreadfully angry with me already.” She wriggled, looking more uncomfortable by the second. “Well, I was just too scared.”
The stain, thanks to Mrs. Bedford, had come out the following morning after much frenzied scrubbing with stain remover. Jack decided to let Imogen Trent feel guilty for a few minutes more. Removing his dark glasses, he rose to his feet.
“You look as if you could do with a drink. What’ll it be?”
“You know what you’re like?” The flush had drained away. Gazing up at him, Imogen shook her head in frustration. “One of those police interrogators who go from being horrible one minute to nice the next. Are you doing this deliberately to confuse me?”
Jack smiled. “Maybe I’m just interested in finding out whether you have anything else to confess.”
* * *
Up on the stage, Sean was doing his condom routine. “Take my old mate Rupert, for instance,” he said with an admiring shake of the head. “Now Rupert has charm. He can get away with anything. Last week at a party, he managed to persuade his girlfriend to lend him her last condom…”
The next moment, he almost lost his thread completely. At the back of the club, a door had opened. A group of late arrivals slid in. Straining to see through the smoke haze that hung over the audience, bringing visibility down to practically nil, Sean experienced a sudden leap of hope. His heart began to pound like a tom-tom. Surely, the figure on the far left of the group was Pandora. Better still, none of the others with her—if it was her—was tall enough to be the big, blond boyfriend.
If it was her. Other than yelling at the stage manager to put the house lights up, Sean had no way of knowing for sure. All he could do was get through the rest of this bloody set. Thank goodness he only had a few more minutes to go.
Thank goodness, too, she didn’t know how long he’d spent waiting in his car to talk to her the other week, Sean realized with a shudder of relief. If she’d spotted him lurking like a prat outside the Moon and Sixpence, his street cred would have gone crashing straight through the pavement.
But none of that mattered now because Pandora was here. It had been her, arriving with the same group of friends halfway through his act. All he had to do now was make his way over, casually greet her, and carry on where he had left off.
Oh, and this time not splatter her from head to toe with blood.
* * *
Downstairs, a clock chimed three. Sean lay on his back in bed, tucked one hand beneath his head, and gazed out through the semi-drawn white curtains at an almost full moon. The sky was black and dotted with stars. Somewhere outside, a cat yowled. Sean, who had never felt more wide awake in his life, wondered if he could slide out of bed without disturbing Pandora.
The evening had gone like a dream; he could still hardly believe it had happened. When Pandora had seemed so pleased to see him after the show, he had gotten quite carried away and whisked her off for a ludicrously expensive dinner at Caviar Kaspiar. In a soft, jade-green silk shirt and a wonderfully demure black bias-cut skirt, she had looked both classy and infinitely desirable. It was all Sean could do to keep his hands off her in the restaurant. No mention had been made of a boyfriend, past or present, but he didn’t care about that either. At least she was here with him now.
“You’re different tonight,” Pandora said finally, over coffee. “I don’t get it. How can you be so different?”
“What can I say?” Sean grinned. “Absence made the heart grow fonder.”
For a second, she pressed the back of her boiling-hot coffee spoon against his wrist. “Come on. I’m interested.”
Sean hadn’t been able to resist telling her.
“You’d taken your dress off,” he said simply. “You sat there in the Blue Goose, wrapped up in that damn raincoat, and all the time, your dress was in your handbag.”
Pandora looked amazed. Then she smiled. “So?”
“You were naked under that coat,” Sean explained. “And you didn’t even tell me.” He shook his head, lost in admiration all over again. “I thought that was just so…cool.”
“Not completely naked.” Pandora’s tone was matter-of-fact.
“Well, you know—”
“I was wearing my Aertex undershirt tucked into big woolly panties.”
“Careful.” Sean found himself grinning uncontrollably. He touched her fingers, outstretched on the snowy tablecloth. “I think I could be falling in love with you. Do you believe in love at second sight?”
“Better wait,” Pandora warned him, “until you’ve seen me in my panties and Aertex undershirt.”
* * *
It was no good. He wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep, at least not until he’d had a glass of water. Peeling back the duvet in slow motion, he slithered out of bed. A blue terry robe of Pandora’s hung from a hook on the door. Sean, who didn’t fancy wandering around a strange house naked, put it on.
He didn’t mean to pry. In coming downstairs, it certainly hadn’t been his intention to snoop around. It was only natural, however, that once he’d helped himself to a glass of ice-cold water, he should wander around the sitting room, admiring Pandora’s taste in paintings, running his fingers idly across her CD collection, and checking out the books in her bookcase. It wasn’t nosiness, merely healthy curiosity, Sean reasoned. When you’d just been to bed for the first time with a girl you liked a lot, you wanted to discover more about her. All he was doing was picking up a few clues, learning that she was a fan of Tom Sharpe, Aretha Franklin, Impressionist art, and Scrabble.
The photographs were tucked casually behind a pink porcelain candlestick on the crowded mantelpiece. Taking care not to disturb the fragile-looking stem vase
to the left of it and a saucer of iridescent marbles on the right, Sean scissored two fingers together and slid the photos away from the wall.
There were only three, together with a hastily scribbled note:
Pandora, just had to send you these. What a great day—we must do it again soon! Love, Wendy.
Sean gazed intently down at the photographs, two of which featured Pandora and the blond boyfriend horsing around together at the side of an azure swimming pool. In the first, she was tipping a bucket of water over him. In the second, he was about to tip her headfirst into the pool.
The third picture, presumably taken by Tarzan himself, showed Pandora sitting with her legs dangling in the water, flanked on either side by a freckled, ginger-haired girl and a middle-aged man wearing glasses. They were all laughing up at the camera, evidently enjoying the sunshine and one another’s company. Pandora, in particular, wearing the smallest bronze bikini Sean had ever seen, looked as if she was having the time of her life. Flipping back almost obsessively to the other two photos, he studied the handsome, tanned face of the blond hulk with the all-American physique and gleaming teeth.
Anger welled up in him, anger and a sense of rivalry. Shocked, Sean realized he was jealous. When he heard the creak of an upstairs floorboard moments later, he jumped a mile, almost dropping the photographs into the empty grate.
He only just had time to stuff them back behind the porcelain candlestick before the sitting-room door opened.
“Here you are.” Pandora smiled slightly. “I thought you’d done a moonlight flit.”
She looked relieved to see him, which Sean felt to be a good sign. Normally an effortless liar, he stood with his back to the fireplace and watched his hand shaking as he raised his half-empty glass to her.
“I was thirsty, couldn’t sleep. Um, I see you like Tom Sharpe. I’ve read all his books too.”
